House of the Brave: Triple the Trouble
by islandgirl394
Summary: Victoire is ready to plunge into her second year at Hogwarts with her two best friends by her side. With Kara and Brianna on her team, could anything possibly go wrong? Part of a larger series.
1. September

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 **Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and places from the Harry Potter world, which is trademarked by JK Rowling. However, all plots are my own and are in no way endorsed by JK Rowling or anyone affiliated with the Harry Potter universe.**

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Chapter 1: September 2012

"There you are!" Victoire exclaimed, throwing open the door to the train compartment where her friends were sitting and clattering in. She pulled out her wand and cast the levitating spell, maneuvering her trunk onto the luggage racks above them. "Oh it feels so good to use magic again," she said. " _Maman_ confiscated my wand as soon as we got to the house. She said it was because she didn't want me leaving it lying around for Dominique or Louis to pick up, but I know it was because she didn't trust me not to use underage magic."

"We know," Brianna said, exasperated with her friend already. "You told us about eight times when we came to interview your aunt and uncle, and you told us about twelve more times each in your letters."

"Have I been repeating myself too much?" Victoire asked.

"Yes!" Kara and Brianna exclaimed together.

"I'm sorry," Victoire sighed, flopping down in her seat. "It's just been _so_ boring. I mean, I know I was able to entertain myself for the first eleven years of my life with just my family, but after having been away from them, it's tough being back for two whole months. I really missed you guys!"

Suddenly, Victoire noticed that there was an unfamiliar occupant in the compartment. "Oh, hi," she said uncertainly.

"Victoire, this is my sister Savannah," Brianna introduced her. "She's starting Hogwarts this year."

"Nice to meet you," Victoire said, feeling terrible for the first impression she must have made. "Sorry about all that, but my brother and sister were driving me crazy all morning. I just need a few hours and I should be back to normal."

"It's okay," Savannah said. "Don't try and be all normal or whatever for me. I don't want to be a bother, I just needed somewhere to sit. I can try to find an empty compartment somewhere else."

"No, you don't need to leave," Victoire insisted. "It's nice to have you here. Hey, do you play exploding snap?" she asked excitedly. "It's so rare that we have a fourth player and it's more fun the more people you have."

"I never learned, but I'm told I catch on really quick," Savannah says.

"It's true, she does," Brianna confirmed while Kara scrambled to get her deck out.

While Kara began to explain the rules to Savannah, Victoire leaned over to Brianna and whispered, smirking. "So what was that you were saying last term about how you were going to harass her this year? Looks like once again, I was right."

"Shut up," Brianna said, bumping her shoulder against Victoire's. "She's my sister. Obviously I'm going to look out for her."

Victoire smiled. Brianna sure liked to put on a good show, but inside she was all melted chocolate and marshmallows.

VvVvVvVvVvV

The candy trolley came by a little while later and the girls paused their game to buy some snacks. Then they reclined in their seats as they ate their makeshift lunch.

"They should really have a trolley with healthy food too," Brianna commented as she ate her licorice wand. "I mean, sure candy is great, but what about the people that are on a diet or something?"

"You don't need to go on a diet," Kara assured her friend. "You're gorgeous."

"Well obviously," Brianna replied. "I just meant, you know, what if I was trying to stay away from candy. Or what if someone was diabetic?"

"There are potions for that, you know," Kara pointed out.

"I'm just saying, there should be other options besides candy. We might all be students, but that doesn't mean we want to fill our veins with sugar and rot our teeth," Brianna insisted.

"You should write to someone about that," Victoire suggested, not really meaning it.

"You're right," Brianna said, grabbing some parchment, ink, and a quill from her trunk. "I'm going to write the Headmistress right now."

"You know I was kidding, right?" Victoire asked.

"No, but it's a good idea," Brianna replied. "If I want them to change something, I have to be proactive. I can't just sit back and expect them to read my mind."

"I suppose not," Victoire said. "But do you really think the Headmistress is going to take the time to consider your letter, not to mention implement your ideas? She has a lot of other stuff going on, you know."

"It's worth a try," Brianna said. "And if I don't hear back in a few weeks, I'll just go up to her office and talk to her in person."

Victoire closed her eyes and shook her head. Her friend wasn't getting it.

"Fine," Victoire said. "Write to the Headmistress and see where that gets you. But remember, I'm almost always right about these things."

"We'll see about that," Brianna muttered, scribbling away furiously.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Truth or dare?" Victoire asked.

"Truth," Kara declared.

"Alright, remember that night you didn't come back to the dorms until really late, and we asked where you were and you claimed you'd been in the library studying?" Victoire asked.

"Oh no," Kara groaned, dropping her face into her hands.

"I would like to know where you really were," Victoire declared.

Kara took a deep breath. "I was having some… digestive problems," she said, closing her eyes in embarrassment. "I got stuck on the toilet in the second floor girls' bathroom with Moaning Myrtle yelling at me for about an hour."

"Oh my gosh, seriously?" Victoire asked, bursting out laughing. "I can't believe it! No wonder you didn't tell us!"

"I kind of wish I still hadn't," Kara said, her face beet red.

"Alright, your turn to ask," Victoire said.

"Alright, Brianna, truth or dare?" Kara asked.

"Dare," Brianna decided.

"I dare you to go into the compartment next door and tell them that you farted in the hall and that they shouldn't come out for the next twenty minutes while it dissipates," Kara said.

"What?" Brianna cried. "That's disgusting!"

"I'm not telling you to actually fart," Kara said. "Just tell them you did."

"That's even worse!" Brianna exclaimed.

"Worse than actually farting?" Victoire asked. "I'm not so sure about that…"

"Come on Bri, you have to," Savannah said eagerly.

"Fine," Brianna said. "But you guys have to stay here." Reluctantly, she got up and left the compartment, shutting the door behind her.

The girls all crowded around the window to watch as she stepped up to the next compartment's door and tapped on their window. They could faintly hear her telling them about the fart and they all collapsed into a fit of giggles as she stormed back in furiously and threw herself down in her seat.

"Guess who's in the compartment next door?" Brianna asked.

"Who?" Kara wondered.

"The second-year Gryffindor boys. All of them. I just made a fool out of myself in front of all five of our classmates. By the time we get to class tomorrow, everyone's going to be talking about how I farted on the train," Brianna cried.

"At least it's not the worst sort of gossip," Kara said. "It'll blow over quick, don't worry about it."

"Easy for you to say," Brianna said, crossing her arms. "You're not the one who had to do that."

"Go ahead then Bri, it's your turn," Victoire said.

"Fine. Victoire, truth or dare?" she demanded.

"Truth," Victoire said, not ready for the kind of dare Brianna was sure to issue in the mood she was in.

"Which of the boys in our year do you think is the most attractive?" Brianna asked.

Victoire flushed and looked down at the ground. "Oh, I don't know…" she muttered.

"Oh, you do know, I can see it in your expression," Savannah insisted.

"Come on, tell us," Brianna said eagerly.

"Okay, well then I guess, you know, wand to my head and all… I'd have to say… Probably Cameron," she muttered.

"Cameron Philbrick?" Kara gasped. "Really?"

Victoire shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Sure, he's nice-looking," she said.

"Oh, he totally is," Brianna agreed. "He may not be my first choice, but he's totally a respectable option."

Victoire breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Brianna approved. She was always nervous around Brianna when the topic of boys came up. She wasn't sure exactly how much experience Brianna really had, only being twelve and all, but she talked a really convincing game.

"Who's Cameron Philbrick?" Savannah asked.

"Oh, he's just next door, why don't you do a walk-by and take a look?" Brianna suggested. "He's the one by the window wearing the green top," she added.

Savannah got up and disappeared for a moment, returning with a smirk on her face. "Totally cute," she agreed, sitting back down.

"All right Savannah, truth or dare?" Victoire challenged.

"Dare," Savannah decided, probably not ready to divulge her deepest, darkest secrets to people she barely knew.

"Alright, I dare you to steal a chocolate frog from the candy trolley," Victoire said.

"No way, that's not fair!" Savannah cried. "Stealing is illegal!"

"Oh come on, it's not that big a deal," Brianna insisted. "Everyone does it. Besides, they overcharge for that candy anyway."

"Alright, fine," Savannah said, taking a deep breath. "I'll do it."

The trolley wasn't far, having turned around after it's first trip to make it's way back to the front. It didn't take long for Savannah to fulfill the dare, returning with not one, but two chocolate frogs hidden up her sleeves.

"My baby sister is all grown up!" Brianna said when Savannah tossed the first frog to her and the second to Victoire.

"You don't want it?" Victoire asked, holding it out. "You did do all the work, after all."

"I couldn't eat it, it wouldn't feel right," Savannah said.

Victoire shrugged. "Well I can," she said, peeling off the wrapping and snapping a leg off before the frog could jump away. "Here Kara, have the rest, I already had one earlier," she said, keeping the leg for herself.

VvVvVvVvVvV

Soon, the train was pulling into the station and the girls were waving goodbye as Savannah nervously joined Hagrid and the first years to go down to the lake. Meanwhile, Kara, Brianna, and Victoire followed the crowd in the other direction to take the carriages up to the castle.

"So what house do you think Savannah's going to be sorted into?" Kara asked as they soared towards Hogwarts.

"Well she really wants to be in Gryffindor like me," Brianna said. "But I'm convinced she'll end up in Hufflepuff."

"I don't know," Victoire said. "The way she stole those frogs? She might very well end up in Slytherin."

"I guess we'll see soon," Brianna said, as they landed. She pushed open the carriage door and they clambered out, hurrying to get good seats at the Gryffindor table where they'd be able to watch Savannah be sorted without too many people in the way.

When the first years entered, Victoire was reminded of her first day and how nervous about making friends she'd been. She was suddenly so thankful for Kara and Brianna, knowing that without them, she'd be completely lost.

The sorting hat sang its song and the long list of students began to be read out and sorted. When Savannah's turn came, it only took seconds for the Sorting Hat to declare her a Gryffindor and Brianna beamed proudly as her sister hopped over to join her new classmates at the top of the table.

"Well I guess that's that then," Victoire said. "She's a Gryffindor now."

"Great," Brianna sighed. "Now we have to share a common room with her and everything."

"Oh come on, it won't be that bad," Kara insisted.

"Just you wait. She was fine on the train, but as soon as she makes friends of her own and starts finding her place, she'll be a nightmare," Brianna said.

"We'll see," Victoire said, diving into her food. She was starving. She would never tell Brianna, but the whole healthy foods cart on the train idea was a really good one.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Hey guys!" Raina exclaimed, catching up with them as they headed up to Gryffindor Tower. "How were your summers?"

"Alright, what about you?" Kara asked.

"Great!" Raina said. "I planted all these new plants right at the beginning of the summer and they've really started to grow. I stopped by the greenhouses before the feast to make sure they got here alright – my mom brought them by Floo while we were all on the train. We set it up with Professor Longbottom, because he said I wasn't allowed to take them on the train after what happened last year with that Shrivelfig. Not that that's ever going to happen again. I totally figured out what went wrong there."

"Well I'm glad everything's working out for you," Victoire said as they reached the Fat Lady. They didn't even have to give the password, because there were a pair of students climbing through the portrait hole ahead of them. Brianna rushed forward to hold it open and they all scrambled through too.

"Well, I guess we'd better get upstairs," Kara noted when they arrived. The first years were gone and the upperclassmen were already moving furniture around for their welcome back to school party.

"I can't wait until we're old enough to stay down at the party," Raina said wistfully.

"I've heard they're no big deal," Victoire said. "Don't waste your wishes."

"Well when we're the ones throwing the party," Brianna said. "It's going to be epic."

"Totally," Kara agreed, leading them all up the stairs.

They pushed through the familiar door and Victoire smiled, looking around at the room that had become home to her the previous year. "We're back," she said to herself.

"Darn," Caitlin's voice sounded. Her head popped up from under her bed and she frowned. "I'd hoped you might not come back at all this year."

"Sorry," Brianna said, not sounding sorry at all. "Looks like you're stuck with us for another year."

The girls spread out, heading to their separate areas to unpack.

"Don't worry," Victoire heard Caitlin muttering to Raina. "I don't have a problem with you."

"Are you seriously putting those posters up again?" Brianna asked when Caitlin climbed up onto her bed with her Quidditch posters and sellotape. "Aren't you tired of them yet?"

"I'll have you know that these are brand-new posters that I got for my birthday a couple weeks ago," Caitlin said snootily. "And if you were really asking if I was over Quidditch yet, then the answer remains no."

"And you're still hanging them with sellotape?" Brianna asked. "You're not worried about them falling on you in your sleep?"

"They didn't fall on me last year," Caitlin observed. "I don't see why they would this year."

"Well, I just figure the sellotape must me getting pretty old right now," Brianna said.

"You know this is new sellotape, right?" Caitlin asked.

"Hey, does anyone mind if I play ocean sounds out of my wand while I sleep?" Raina asked, cutting into Brianna and Caitlin's conversation. "My healer says it's going to help me sleep better."

"I guess not," Victoire said. Ocean sounds were soothing to her, since she lived by the sea.

"Great," Raina said, muttering a few words and then placing her wand on her side table. Suddenly, the room was filled with the sounds of splashing and whales. Victoire had been expecting waves and seagulls. She groaned.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Guys! Guess what?" Brianna exclaimed a few days later after having received a letter from someone. "Remember how I wrote the Headmistress about the healthy food cart idea? Well she loved it! She wants to meet with me to talk about what it would look like, but she's going to implement it!"

"Seriously?" Victoire asked. She'd been positive the idea was going to be tossed aside.

"I guess you're not always right, huh?" Brianna gloated.

"Well congratulations," Kara said with a smile. "This is really exciting!"

"It is, isn't it?" Brianna asked. "Anyway, I'm supposed to meet with her next week."

"That's great," Victoire said, deciding to be happy for her friend instead of mad that she'd been wrong.

VvVvVvVvVvV

A couple days later, the second years were on their way out of Defence class, when Professor Leftbridge asked Kara, Brianna and Victoire to stay back for a moment to talk about their summer work.

"What do you think he wants?" Victoire wondered.

"I don't know," Brianna said. "This is the only class we didn't copy off each other for."

The girls nervously walked up to his desk at the front of the room while the rest of the class filed out.

"I was extremely impressed by your summer papers," he began with a smile. "I was especially impressed that you managed to get interviews with three of the most important people to the defeat of Voldemort in the second wizarding war. How were you able to manage that?"

"Well Harry Potter is Victoire's uncle," Brianna explained.

"Actually, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are my aunt and uncle too," Victoire added. "I asked them if Kara and Brianna could interview them and then I convinced Uncle Harry to let me write my paper on him."

"That's incredible," Professor Leftbridge said. "Harry Potter never takes interviews anymore."

"Well, it was just me and it was just for a silly school assignment," Victoire shrugged. "It's not like it was an interview for the Daily Prophet. He hates those."

"Indeed," Professor Leftbridge mused. "I was wondering. Since you were able to get an interview with him, do you think it would be possible to convince him to come in some time? Maybe give a guest lecture about the second wizarding war? We're going to be talking about it a great deal over the next couple of months in class, and it would really mean a lot for the students to be able to ask questions, you know?"

"I guess I can ask him," Victoire shrugged. "I can't promise he'd say yes though."

"Oh yes, do ask him," Professor Leftbridge asked. "Thank you so much girls. I won't keep you any longer, just let me know if he's interested."

Victoire nodded and the girls headed off to Charms, albeit a tad late. Of course, Professor Flitwick didn't seem to notice as they made it in time to call 'here' for rollcall.

Victoire wasn't convinced her Uncle would agree to come and speak, but she supposed there was no harm in asking.

VvVvVvVvVvV

A couple days later, while Victoire and Kara were painting their nails and Brianna was in a meeting with the Headmistress about the health food cart, Caitlin stormed into the dorm and began ripping down her Quidditch posters.

"What's wrong?" Kara asked.

"Stupid Quidditch team," Caitlin grumbled. "Stupid Claudia Cloude only picking her friends and people that were on the team last year. It's not fair, I flew really well!"

"Okay, don't tear down your posters," Kara said, rushing over to stop her before she ruined them. "You're just angry you didn't make the team. It doesn't mean you hate Quidditch. Come on, sit down."

She eased the girl into a seated position on the edge of the bed.

"Listen to me," she said when Caitlin had calmed a bit. "You're a second year. You've only been flying for a year. There are tons of students in Gryffindor, most of whom are older than you and have been flying longer than you. Of course they got the spots over you. But that doesn't mean you should give up. Because next year, there will be even less people that fly better than you. And the year after that, even less. And if you keep practicing, you'll become an even better flier, and maybe you'll even surpass some of the people who are on the team now. You have five more years to make the team. So don't give up now."

"You really think I could make the team someday?" Caitlin asked.

"Sure I do," Kara said. "You run around the castle everyday, you train down at the pitch whenever it's free, you're definitely going to make it. But in order to make it, you have to keep trying."

Caitlin sighed. "I guess you're right," she said. "You know; I think I actually might like you a bit. When you're being nice, at least."

"Thanks, I guess," Kara replied, standing and returning to Victoire's bed.

Victoire raised her eyebrows. "What was that?" she asked.

"I have no idea," Kara said. "Just don't tell Brianna."

"Oh I won't," Victoire assured her.

Just then, an owl began pecking at the window. Since it was the window closest to Caitlin's bed, Caitlin opened it and the owl zoomed in straight for Victoire.

"Dobby!" she cried, recognizing her Uncle Harry's screech owl. It must be the reply to Professor Leftbridge's inquiry. She untied the letter and sent Dobby to the owlery to get some food, promising him that she would come to him with a reply letter soon.

She unrolled the letter and began to read, not sure really what answer she wanted her Uncle to have given her.

 _Victoire,_

 _I must admit, my first reaction to your question was an immediate no. I've avoided speaking in public for many years now and couldn't imagine the field day the press would have if I agreed to speak at Hogwarts. But after thinking about it, I realized that it might actually be an opportunity. So few people your age understand what it was like, living through a war. Of course, it would be impossible to make them understand without making them live through one themselves, but it might be worth it to give your classmates a little taste of what it was like. At the very least it could give them a better appreciation of the subject. So I'm in. But I have two conditions._

 _First, no press. I don't want any reporters or photographers there. In fact, I don't want it advertised at all. I'll have to speak to your Professor directly of course, but I don't want the students to know I'm coming. It should be a surprise._

 _Second, I want to bring your Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione with me. We do these things better as a team. If your Professor can accept these terms, then have him send me an owl and we'll sort out the details directly._

 _On a personal note, I hope you're enjoying the beginning of your second term. Don't study too hard. I'll see you soon, I'm sure,_

 _Uncle Harry_

"Well we can't tell anyone," Victoire said quietly to Kara so that Caitlin wouldn't hear – not that she was listening. She was working on hanging her posters back up. "But Uncle Harry said yes!"


	2. October

Chapter 2: October 2012

Soon, the day of Harry's guest appearance in Defence class was upon them. Victoire and her friends knew he was coming, but the rest of the second years had no idea. As everyone filed into the Defence classroom, Victoire looked around, wondering where her Uncle was. Was he hiding? Was he planning only coming out once everyone was inside?

Professor Leftbridge shut the door and walked up to begin the lesson.

"Today, we're going to continue our work from last class," he announced. "If you would please all turn to page three hundred and forty-six of your textbooks."

Victoire frowned. Wasn't Uncle Harry's guest speech today? Where was he? Had she gotten the dates confused? With a shrug, and figuring she'd owl him later to see what happened, she began to flip through her book to the correct page.

Suddenly, someone jumped up from behind Professor Leftbridge's desk and screamed " _Stupefy!_ "

Victoire barely had time to process that it was her Aunt Hermione before a second voice, this one coming from the back of the class, cried " _Protego!_ "

An invisible shield went up around all the students and the jet of red light bounced off it, hitting the ceiling. A third person, who Victoire knew before he emerged was going to be her Uncle Ron, ran out of Professor Leftbridge's office, sending jets of light soaring in both Aunt Hermione and Uncle Harry's direction.

They both diverted them skillfully and counter-attacked with spells of their own. Uncle Harry slowly made his way to the front of the room, and soon the whole class was watching in rapt attention as the adults duelled in a three-way battle.

The battle ended spectacularly when Victoire's Uncle Harry cast his signature spell, _expelliarmus_ and managed to split the spell in two halves and hit both Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron at the same time. Then he quickly pocketed his own wand and rolled along the floor, catching both their wands in either hand.

In the wake of the duel, the room remained in utter silence. Nobody dared move. Nothing like this had ever been done before in Defence class.

"Professor Leftbridge has invited me here today to speak to you about the realities of fighting the Dark Arts," Uncle Harry said, tossing Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione back their wands. "For those of you who don't know me, my name is Harry Potter, and this is Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger Weasley."

"We know who you are," Sara Pucey said, breaking the spell.

"Good, then we don't have to go over that," Uncle Harry said. "When you all walked in here today, not a single one of you noticed that there were three more people in the room that shouldn't have been. Now that's okay when you're at Hogwarts, because you all know there are protection spells around the castle keeping out unfriendly visitors. But in the field, you can never let your guard down, not even for a moment." Victoire thought about how unobservant she'd been. She'd even known that her Aunt and Uncles were coming, and she didn't even bother to notice whether they were really there or not. "You there," Uncle Harry said, pointing to a boy in the front. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Jonathan Cadwallader," the boy replied nervously.

"When Hermione shot that first stunning spell, I had about five seconds to react before Jonathan here would have been stunned. If I hadn't been expecting it, would I have been able to react as fast as I did?" he asked.

At first, nobody said anything. Then, slowly and tentatively, May Enlow raised her hand.

"No?" she half said half asked.

"Exactly," Uncle Harry said.

"But you knew she was there," Arnold Rosen challenged, feeling more confident now that May had spoken first. "You planned it ahead of time. In the real world, you wouldn't know if someone was going to attack you."

"That's a very good point," Uncle Harry noted. "So what's the solution then?" Nobody had an answer for this. "The answer," he said after waiting enough time to build the suspense, "is to always be expecting an attack. When you're in the field, and you're tracking down a Death Eater, you can't let your guard down even for a second. If I'd stopped to fix my robes or tie my shoe while Professor Leftbridge was starting the class, Hermione might have cast that spell before I was ready. If my wand hadn't been in my hand, or at least in a position where I could grab it at a moment's notice, I couldn't have gotten that shield up fast enough."

"But a person can't constantly be waiting for an attack," Derek Nelson spoke up. "When would they eat, or sleep?"

"In the Auror office, that's why we send our units out in teams or groups," Uncle Harry explained. "And of course, today, civilians have the luxury of living a life where they don't have to worry about being attacked in the street, or having someone break into their house. But when you're living in wartimes, or under a regime of terror, you don't always have that luxury."

"I have had the personal experience of living through a war. In fact, when I was about your age, maybe a little older, the second wizarding war began. So I learned from the beginning to always be on guard, to always be watching. Even being within the walls of Hogwarts didn't always mean safety in those days. The Death Eaters still found their way in, more than once in fact.

You could have heard a pin drop down the hall, everyone was so quiet, hanging off Harry's every word intently.

"In wartimes, so many people die, or get so seriously injured that they are never the same again. And while there's not always something you can do, I can guarantee you all this. The people that were on guard; the people that were always expecting a fight, even when they were just eating breakfast or taking a shower; those people are the ones that were less likely to die. Of course, there's really not all that much a person can do when they're up against the killing curse, but your chances are always better when you're prepared.

Victoire was in awe. She'd never heard her Uncle speak so frankly about his experiences of living through the war. He usually kept that part of himself hidden, or else he would talk about it with his wife, Aunt Ginny, or else with Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione. He certainly didn't talk much about it with the younger kids.

"When I was fourteen, I watched someone die right before my eyes," he continued. "His name was Cedric Diggory. We'd been competitors in the Triwizard Tournament, but had decided to team up and take the win for Hogwarts together. We grabbed hold of the trophy at the same time and were transported to a graveyard where Voldemort and one of his Death Eaters were waiting for us. For a second – just for a second – Cedric let his guard down. He thought we'd won, that we were being taken back to the starting point, I think. I saw his grip on his wand slacken. I saw the confused look on his face when he realized we weren't where we were supposed to be. And barely a second later, he was on the ground, dead.

"Cedric was a great wizard. He was Hogwart's finest, chosen from amongst the whole school to compete in one of the most prestigious tournaments. His skill level was incredible. His ingenuity was exceptional. If it weren't for his help, I wouldn't even have passed the second task, let alone made it to the third. He knew all the spells, all the counter-curses, all the hexes and jinxes in the book. He let his guard down for a second. And that was all it took.

"When you fight the Dark Arts, you're not fighting your teacher or your classmate," he said. "You're not taking turns, sending spells back and forth. You're not waiting for your opponent to nod to let you know that they're ready. You're not in a room filled with cushions and mats to fall over onto. And you never know whether you're going to come out of your duel alive. When you're out there in the world, facing real Dark Magic, you have to be ready. This class is important, because it teaches you the skills you need. It teaches you the techniques and the wand movements and how to cast the spells. But there's one thing that you're not going to learn in the classroom. Something you can only learn from yourself. Something they can't test you on, or grade you on a scale of one to ten. And in a wartime situation, that's the thing that makes you a survivor."

VvVvVvVvVvV

"That was the most intense lecture I've ever experienced," Brianna said once they'd made it out the doors of their Defence class.

"Yeah," Kara agreed. "I mean it's one thing to read about the war in our history books, but it's totally different when you hear someone like Harry Potter talking about it."

"I've always heard stories from my family about wartimes," Victoire said. "But nobody's ever put things so bluntly like that before."

"If he weren't an Auror, he could totally teach Defence," Brianna said. "Professor Leftbridge is great and all, but I feel like we could really learn a lot from him."

"I don't know if I'd want Uncle Harry to be our teacher," Victoire disagreed. "I mean, sure his lecture was great, but if everyday was intense like that, I think I'd go insane. Plus, he'd be keeping constant tabs on me for _maman_ and _papa_. I've already got Teddy for that, thank-you very much."

By lunchtime, word had spread about how Harry Potter was giving Defence lectures. The second-years were lucky to have had Defence first period, because it was a lot bigger of a surprise. By the time the fourth-years had him at the end of the day, they were already waiting for Hermione to spring out from behind the desk and try to stun someone in the front row.

The stories people told about it only got more and more elaborate. By the week after Uncle Harry's visit, Victoire was overhearing tales of how he'd defended himself against five men in Death Eater masks when really, Victoire knew it had always just been Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione.

Eventually though, excitement about Harry Potter died down as anticipation for the upcoming Halloween party rose.

"Should we go this year?" Victoire wondered one night up in the dorm, copying Kara's charms assignment while Kara copied her Herbology one.

"It could be fun," Brianna said. "And we didn't get to go last year."

"Of course, we did end up having a lot of fun last year," Kara added. "The common room was practically empty. How often do we have the whole place to ourselves?"

"Not that often," Brianna agreed.

"And the party's probably super lame anyway," Victoire pointed out. "It's in the Great Hall with all the Professors there and a bunch of older students who are going to be pushing us out of the way to get to the snacks."

"But on the other hand," Kara said slowly. "We don't want to miss out on something that could potentially be a lot of fun."

"Yeah, and we can paint our nails and play exploding snap anytime," Brianna agreed.

"So we're going then?" Victoire asked.

"We're going," Kara agreed.

"Do you think you could convince your mother to make us costumes again this year?" Brianna wondered. "They were spectacular last year, and would have been perfect if only we'd known not to wear them to breakfast."

"I'll owl her," Victoire promised. "I'm sure she'd love to though."

Victoire did indeed owl her mother later that night, and by the following morning, she had confirmation that her mother would be overjoyed to make the girls costumes again. Just like the year before, she wouldn't tell them what she was making ahead of time, so the girls waited in anticipation as it got closer and closer to Halloween. Finally, the day before, the packages arrived. Inside were beautiful white robes and fluttering wings that had to have been charmed with a spell to make them shimmer the way they did. Just as last year with the mermaid costumes, these angel costumes were sure to be the most spectacular costumes of the whole school.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Help me get my wings on?" Victoire asked, struggling with the fasteners. They were designed so that it would be impossible to tell they were fastened on, but positioned in such a way that Victoire couldn't reach them on her own.

"There," Kara said, fixing her friend's wings into place. "Here, can you do mine?" she asked.

Soon, the girls were all ready to go. Their wings were on, their makeup was done, their halos were resting on top of their heads. There was nothing left to do but head down to the party.

"Oh my gosh, you guys look amazing!" Savannah exclaimed when the girls descended into the common room.

"Thanks," Victoire said. "So do you." Savannah was dressed as what appeared to be a bunny rabbit, but could potentially be a bear.

"Where did you get those costumes?" Savannah asked.

" _Maman_ made them," Victoire told her.

"What's a _maman_?" Savannah asked.

"Her mother," Brianna told her, shaking her head at her sister. "It's French, because Victoire's mother is French."

"Oh," Savannah said. "Cool!"

"Are you going down now?" Kara asked, offering to let her go down with them.

"No, I'm just waiting for my friends," Savannah said. "You go ahead."

When they got to the Great Hall, Victoire was speechless. Over the course of the afternoon, the house elves must have slaved away to create such a fantastic display. First there were the decorations; floating pumpkins carved with scary faces, skeletons along the walls clattering their bones, even the magical ceiling was stormy, with flashes of lightning and claps of thunder sounding at random despite the clear night outside. Then there was the food. The house tables had been pushed to the sides of the room and were laden with sweets and pastries and all sorts of finger foods that could be eaten without the use of the plate. Music was playing from somewhere, though Victoire couldn't identify where, and the middle of the room was filled with people dancing wildly. It was like nothing Victoire had ever experienced before and it was wonderful.

"We should dance!" Kara suggested. "Before we fill up on food."

Victoire and Brianna agreed and the three girls dived into the crowd and began jumping and waving their arms, trying to mimic everyone else.

It was fun like Victoire had never had before, and she hated to stop, but soon she was too tired to continue to dance any longer. Exhausted, the girls walked over to the nearest table and went straight for the pumpkin juice, which was in a large punch bowl. They ladled it into three goblets and took a short rest as they drank their fill of the juice. As soon as they were recharged, they put their goblets down and rejoined the fray.

At one point, a slow song came on, and students began coupling off to dance in pairs. The three girls decided that they would get a bite to eat while they waited for the more exciting songs to start again. While they were deciding whether to start with some real food or just go straight for the sweets, William Shimpling came up to them clearing his throat.

"Kara?" he asked, causing the girl to squeak in surprise.

"Yeah?" she asked nervously.

"Would you like to dance with me?" he asked.

Kara's face turned beet red as she stumbled and stammered over her words.

"I – I – Well, I – Sure," she said, biting her lip as he took her hand and led her out into the middle of the Hall. As they walked away, she turned back and looked at Victoire and Brianna, her eyes filled with questions. Victoire gave her a thumbs up and Brianna made a motion with her hands as if to say 'go on'.

"Our sweet little Kara," Brianna said. "Dancing with a boy for the first time."

When the song was over, Kara returned, looking flushed.

"How was it?" Brianna asked the minute she was back.

"I don't know," Kara said uncomfortably. "We danced, it was nice."

"Did he say anything?" Brianna asked.

"Not really," Kara said with a shrug. "He told me he liked my costume."

"He totally likes you," Brianna said excitedly. "You should wait for the next slow song and then ask _him_ to dance."

"I don't know," Kara said, unsure. "I think the one dance was enough for tonight."

"But nothing's going to happen if you don't," Brianna said. "He made the first move, now you have to make the second one."

"But do I want something to happen?" Kara asked.

"Of course you do!" Brianna exclaimed.

Victoire felt uncomfortable. If it was her in Kara's place, she wouldn't want Brianna pushing her like this.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Victoire said to Kara gently. "There will be other chances to dance with boys."

"I mean he was nice," Kara said. "But I don't know if I would want to dance with him again."

"And you definitely don't have to," Victoire said. "We can just dance with each other for the rest of the party."

"Seriously?" Brianna asked. "You're just going to ignore him for the rest of the night? What if he wanted to be your boyfriend?"

"I'm twelve," Kara said. "I don't need a boyfriend right now."

"Well if you're not going to dance with him, then I will," Brianna said, stalking over to where William was hanging out with some of his friends. She tapped him on the shoulder and then in moments was leading him out to the dance floor.

"I don't think I want to be at this party anymore," Kara said to Victoire, her voice wobbling a bit. "I'm going to go to bed."

"I'll come with you," Victoire said.

"No, you should stay and have fun," Kara protested.

"I'd rather go back to the dorm with you," Victoire said. "This party is lame anyway."

"It really is," Kara agreed, smiling. Victoire could see unshed tears welling up in her friend's eyes and led her out of the Hall and up to Gryffindor Tower.

" _Pumpkin_ ," Victoire said the festive new password to the Fat Lady. They climbed through the portrait hole and bypassed the empty common room, going straight up to the dorms.

"I'm going to need help getting out of this costume," Kara admitted when they got to the bathroom.

"Turn around," Victoire said, unfastening the angel wings and letting them fall to the ground. "Here, now get mine," she said, turning around herself.

"Sorry about making you miss the rest of the party," Kara said sadly.

"I already told you, it was no fun anyway," Victoire said.

"It was fun for a while," Kara mumbled. "Until Brianna ruined it." Tears started falling down her cheeks and her voice began to rise. "I mean, why was she making such a big deal about William?" she asked. "Why couldn't I just dance with him once and then leave it at that? Why did I have to go up to him? Why was it such a big deal that I didn't want to? Why do I even have to have a boyfriend at twelve? I mean, I'm twelve!"

"I don't know why she made it such a big deal," Victoire said. "But trust me, if I'd been you tonight, I wouldn't have wanted to go ask William to dance again."

"I mean he was nice enough," Kara said, wiping her tears away. "But Brianna made me feel like such a big baby about it. Ever since I told you guys I'd never kissed a guy before, I feel like she's judging me for it."

"You know I've never kissed a boy either, right?" Victoire said.

"You haven't?" Kara asked.

"No way!" Victoire cried. "Like you keep saying, we're only twelve!"

"Brianna has," Kara muttered.

"You know what?" Victoire asked. "I'm honestly not convinced she has. I think she just likes us to think so."

"Why?" Kara asked.

"I'm not sure," Victoire confessed. "Either way though, if you're not ready to be kissing boys, you shouldn't be kissing boys. We have our whole lives to do that."

"I guess," Kara shrugged. "Sometimes I just feel like everyone else is so much more mature than me when it comes to that stuff."

"Well they're not," Victoire promised her.

They finished taking their costumes off and Victoire helped Kara into bed. Just as she was about to get in her own bed though, Brianna burst through the door triumphantly.

"Guess who danced with me _all_ night long?" Brianna bragged.

"Well considering you spent the whole first half of the party dancing with us, I'm going to say nobody," Victoire said.

"Okay, fine, guess who danced with me for the whole second half of the party then?" Brianna amended.

"Brianna, I really don't think – "

"It was William," Brianna declared. "We danced for like, an hour, and then he walked me all the way up to the seventh floor. He is so sweet."

"Really Brianna, can we talk in the bathroom?" Victoire asked, raising her eyebrows at her friend. Though she loved Brianna, right now, she was being really mean to Kara.

"And right before he left, William totally kissed me," Brianna said.

"Brianna, seriously, can we talk in the bathroom?" Victoire asked.

"Fine, whatever," Brianna said, rolling her eyes.

Annoyed, Victoire dragged the girl into the bathroom and shut the door, hoping that they were far enough away that Kara wouldn't hear what she was about to say.

"What is wrong with you?" Victoire shouted. "Kara is clearly extremely upset and you're just standing there bragging about stealing William out from under her?"

"I hardly stole him," Brianna said. "It's not like she even wanted him."

"Whether she wanted him or not, you know what you did was hurtful," Victoire shot back. "If you'd wanted to dance with a guy, you could have asked any of the guys in our class. You didn't have to pick the one guy who had wanted to dance with Kara. You just wanted to prove that you were better than her. Well guess what? You succeeded, because now she thinks she's completely worthless!"

"I don't know who you think you are, Victoire Weasley, but just because your uncle is Harry Potter, and all your family are famous, it doesn't give you the right to go yelling at people like this," Brianna cried.

"What?" Victoire gasped. "This has nothing to do with my uncle or my family! This is about Kara and how she feels. Do you not understand that?"

"If she's going to cry herself to sleep over some boy she didn't even want to ask to dance, then that's her problem," Brianna said. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"If you can't see the problem here, then there is nothing else I can say to you," Victoire gave up, turning around and slamming the door behind her.

"Hey, Kara?" she asked softly, approaching her friend's bed. "Are you all right?"

"I just want to sleep, if that's okay," Kara said, her voice muffled by the pillows.

"Okay," Victoire replied, pulling the curtains of Kara's bed shut, so that she wouldn't have to see or interact with Brianna again that night. "I'll see you in the morning."

Exhausted, Victoire collapsed onto her bed, shutting her curtains as well, knowing that she couldn't handle seeing Brianna again that night. How could Brianna be so mean? What had come over her? Normally she wasn't like this at all.


	3. November

Chapter 3: November 2012

When Victoire awoke the next morning, the curtains around Kara's bed were still closed and Brianna's bed was empty. Tentatively, Victoire ventured into the bathroom, unsure whether she was hoping to find Brianna inside or not. In the end, it didn't matter because she wasn't there.

"Kara?" Victoire said, pushing back the curtains and rousing her friend. "Kara, it's time to wake up," she said. "We have classes soon."

Kara rolled over and opened her eyes. They were red from the crying she'd done the night before, and her cheeks were stained with tears.

"Where's Brianna?" Kara asked.

"She must have left early," Victoire said. "It's better this way though. You can compose yourself before you have to see her in class."

Kara nodded and allowed Victoire to drag her out of bed. She grabbed her bathroom kit and made her way to the bathroom to shower.

Already anticipating the challenges ahead, Victoire got ready too, taking a quick shower and throwing on some clean robes.

"Are you ready?" Victoire asked when there was nothing left to do but head down to the Great Hall.

"Yeah," Kara said, her eyes fixed on something in the distance. "Can't stay up here all day."

When they got to the Great Hall, Victoire didn't see Brianna at first. She wondered if maybe the girl had realized how wrong she'd been and was giving Kara some space before coming to apologize. She hoped that was the case, at least. The two girls sat at the end of the Gryffindor table and Victoire began spreading some jam on a piece of toast, not being in the mood for much more.

Suddenly, she heard a very familiar laugh. It had to be Brianna's, but upon re-scanning the Gryffindor table, she couldn't see their other friend anywhere. She heard the laugh again and realized it was coming from the next table over. She spun around and gasped out loud when she found that Brianna was eating at the Hufflepuff table with William Shimpling and all his friends.

"Kara, we should get going!" she said in a high-pitched voice. "We don't want to be late for Transfiguration!"

"It's not that far," Kara muttered. "And I've already seen Brianna, so you don't have to try to shield me. It's fine. I didn't really like William anyway, so I don't really care that she's sitting with him. Or that she danced with him. Or that she kissed him."

"We should go anyway," Victoire said. "You don't want to sit here and watch this."

Unfortunately, leaving the Great Hall didn't solve their problem. All through the rest of the day, Brianna was hanging off William's shoulder, talking louder than necessary and laughing at things that weren't even funny. She made sure to sit with him in all their classes and meals. By the end of the day, Victoire could tell Kara needed a break, so she suggested they go back to the common room instead of watching Brianna fawn over William in the library.

"Game of exploding snap?" Victoire suggested once they had claimed a decent spot close to the fire.

"We're only two," Kara said. "It's not really all that fun with two."

"Wizard's chess?" Victoire asked. Not that she wanted to play, but she wanted to get Kara's mind off everything that was going on.

"No, I think we learned our lesson from the last time we played," Kara said. "We should probably just get started on our homework."

"Yeah?" Victoire asked. She knew if she was upset, homework would be the last thing she would want to do, but perhaps Kara was different than her. "Sure. Potions essay or Charms assignment?" she asked, naming the two assignments whose due dates were coming up.

"Charms," Kara decided, reaching into her bag and producing her Charms textbook.

"Great," Victoire said, picking up her own textbook and propping it open on her lap. The assignment was on Freezing Charms – what wand motion was needed to cast it and why. It wasn't the most interesting of topics; Victoire would have preferred writing an essay on the reactions of the various ingredients in the wiggenweld potion, but she was willing to do Charms if Kara preferred. Besides, she had to do both assignments eventually.

The next few weeks were awful. Brianna barely spoke to either Victoire or Kara, and when she did, it was to run her new relationship with William in Kara's face. Kara was devastated and Victoire didn't know what to do.

"It's like she's turned into this monster," Victoire vented to Teddy one night in the common room while Kara was checking a book out of the library. "She used to be this really nice girl who was our friend and suddenly she's openly trying to make Kara miserable."

"Have you tried talking to her?" Teddy suggested.

"Who, Brianna?" Victoire asked. "Not since Halloween night, when she basically told me that I thought I was entitled because my uncle is Harry Potter."

"She said that?" Teddy gasped, astonished. "But anyone who knows you would know in a second that that wasn't true."

"I know," Victoire said. "But I guess we don't know each other as well as we thought we did. I mean, I never would have thought she'd do something like this. And to carry it on for so long, I mean, what is she trying to prove?"

"You don't think maybe she just really likes this William guy?" Teddy asked.

Victoire thought for a moment. "No," she decided. If Brianna had liked him, she wouldn't have been all excited about trying to push Kara to dance with him. I think she's just using him."

"Maybe you should tell William that," Teddy suggested.

"I couldn't do that," Victoire said. "It's too mean."

"Why not?" Teddy asked. "She's doing worse."

"Because after everything, I still think there's a shred of hope that we can all be friends again. Maybe I'm just projecting what I want to see, but I think this is coming out of a place of hurt, not a place of malice," Victoire said.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Teddy said. "But I think you have a tendency to look for good everywhere, even when there is none. It's a great quality, but sometimes it can be kind of dangerous."

"You really think she's beyond help?" Victoire asked.

"I don't know," Teddy confessed. "I only know what you've told me. But I think you should take the situation as it is now. Unless Brianna suddenly realizes that what she did was wrong, there's nothing you can do. The best thing to do would be to live your life and if she changes, she changes. But don't go trying to change someone where there's no hope of change in the first place."

"Thanks Teddy," Victoire said. "That helped."

"Anytime kid," he responded. "Anytime."

VvVvVvVvVvV

"So I'm thinking tonight we get Transfiguration and Defence out of the way, and then that way we can enjoy our Saturday without having to worry about doing homework, and on Sunday we can finish up that Astronomy assignment and sketch out an outline for the big term paper in History of Magic," Victoire suggested as she and Kara walked towards the greenhouses for their last class of the day.

"That is, assuming we don't get any Herbology work assigned for the weekend," Kara pointed out.

"If we do, then you can take Defence and I'll take Herbology and we'll copy each other," Victoire said. "We can still be done in plenty of time to enjoy a nice Saturday stroll before the weather gets any colder."

They got to greenhouse three only to find Brianna and William standing in the doorway, Brianna brushing imaginary dust out of William's hair.

"Come on," Victoire said, pushing through the pair and dragging Kara along with her. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I bump into you?" she asked after pointedly shoving Brianna backwards and causing her to fall in a pot of dirt.

"Victoire, you did that on purpose!" Brianna cried.

"Can't prove it," Victoire shrugged, smirking as she led Kara to the back of the greenhouse, far from where William and Brianna were sitting.

"Thanks," Kara said gratefully.

"Hey, I'll push that girl into a pot of dirt for you anytime," Victoire assured her friend.

"Alright class, settle down," Professor Longbottom said loudly as everyone took their seats. "Now today, we're going to be working with sopophorus plants. I've been told you've all used the bean before in potions and that you know all about it's properties, so we're going to skip that and get straight to how you get them off the plant and into a jar in the dungeon."

Their Professor explained the process and then instructed them all to start working on their plants while he passed out their assignments from the previous week.

"Ugh, this is ridiculous," Kara said as she tried to pry open the bulb encasing the sopophorus bean. "It won't open. How am I supposed to get it out if it won't open?"

"Try using the shears to prop it open and then stick your hand inside and pull it out," Victoire suggested as she successfully retrieved her first bean."

"Excellent technique Victoire," Professor Longbottom said as he passed by, placing their assignments facedown in front of them. "Kara, keep trying," he added.

Victoire grabbed her assignment and flipped it over. There were a few comments, but what she was interested in was the huge O written in red ink at the top of the page.

"How did you do?" Victoire wondered.

"I – " Kara trailed off. "I – "

"What's wrong?" Victoire asked.

"I failed," Kara finally said, placing the parchment down on the table in front of her.

Victoire looked down to find a bright red P sitting glaringly at the top of Kara's paper. There were a lot of comments in red.

"It's not that bad," Victoire said encouragingly. "It's not like it's a D or a T. You barely failed. And it's not an exam or anything, it barely counts for anything. It's just a stupid homework assignment."

"I've never failed anything before in my life," Kara said, staring ahead. "I can't believe it."

"Don't worry about it, you're going to be fine," Victoire assured her. "It's one lousy grade, you'll pull it back up. You're great at Herbology."

"No, you're great at Herbology," Kara corrected. "I'm great at nothing."

"Well that's just not true at all," Victoire disagreed. "You got an O in Charms last year. That's better than either me or Brianna."

"Yeah, but that's just Charms. What use is Charms? It's like the baby course where you learn stuff that can be useful in all the other classes," Kara said.

"Well don't say that in front of Professor Flitwick or he might give you a detention," Victoire said. "Charms is absolutely an important subject. How are you supposed to do anything without Charms? It's the foundation of what it means to be a witch or wizard."

"I know you're trying to make me feel better, but it's not working. You wouldn't know, you've never failed anything," Kara said.

"I've come pretty darn close," Victoire said. "Remember that interview from the summer that I did with Uncle Harry? I put absolutely no work into that. I should have gotten a T. I'm pretty sure Professor Leftbridge only passed me because he needed me to ask Uncle Harry to come a give those guest speeches.

"That's just a dumb summer assignment," Kara sighed. "That doesn't count for anything."

"And neither does this," Victoire insisted, flapping Kara's assignment in front of her face. "Look, watch this." She took the assignment in both her hands and dramatically ripped it in half down the middle.

"Victoire!" Kara exclaimed, grabbing it back. "You can't rip up assignments!"

"Sure you can," Victoire returned. "Look, I'm doing it right now to mine."

She ripped her own down the middle, and then for good measure, ripped it a few more times, resulting in about thirty-two little pieces of assignment littering the table.

"Victoire?" Professor Longbottom asked from the front of the room. "What's going on back there?"

"Nothing Professor!" Victoire called back.

"We should get back to work on these sopophorus plants," Kara said, shoving her assignment into the bottom of her bag.

"Only if you admit it out loud," Victoire said.

"Admit what?" Kara asked.

"That you're overreacting. That you're an amazing student and one bad grade doesn't change that," Victoire said.

"Fine," Kara huffed. "I'm overreacting."

"And…" Victoire pushed.

"And I'm an amazing student and one bad grade doesn't change that," Kara said, a smile developing on her face about halfway through.

"Alright, now we can get back to work," Victoire declared, picking up her shears to attack her plant again.

VvVvVvVvVvV

Sunday night found Victoire, Kara, Teddy, and Billy Carmichael all sitting on the floor in the common room playing exploding snap. Ever since Victoire had talked to Teddy about Brianna, he'd been keeping an eye on her and Kara, making sure they were okay. Sometimes it was annoying, but when it came to exploding snap, it was nice to have the extra players.

"I win!" Kara exclaimed when the cards blew up in Billy's face. "That's three times in a row. You guys better not be letting me win!" she accused.

"How could we be doing that?" Teddy asked. "They explode at random. And it's your deck, so you know we haven't tampered with them."

"Good point," Kara agreed as she dealt out a new hand.

Just then, the portrait hole opened and Brianna flew through the common room and stomped up the stairs to the dorms. Even from the common room, Victoire could hear the slam of the door when she reached their shared room.

"What's wrong with her?" Billy asked.

"A lot of things," Victoire replied.

"Whatever," Kara said, playing her first card. "She's stupid, I don't care about her anymore."

The next day at breakfast, Brianna was conspicuously absent. In Charms that morning, she sat far away from everyone and didn't say a word to Kara or Victoire when they found themselves leaving the room at the same time.

"Do you think she and William had a fight?" Victoire wondered when in their fourth class, Brianna was still sitting alone, and not making eye contact with anyone from Hufflepuff.

"Even if she did, I wouldn't care," Kara sniffed.

It wasn't until the next day, while Kara was having a meeting with Professor Longbottom to discuss her poor grade, that Victoire found out what had happened. She was sitting alone in the library, doing research for her term paper in History of Magic – her topic was the International Warlock Convention of 1289 and how it caused a rift between the Warlocks of Eastern Europe and the Warlocks of Western Europe – when Brianna nervously came up and asked if she could sit.

"What do you want?" Victoire demanded.

"I just want to talk," Brianna said.

"Was this talk going to begin with an apology perhaps?" Victoire asked.

"Well I think the person I really owe an apology to is Kara, but I can start with you," Brianna said. "Vic, I'm _so_ sorry. I had no excuse for what I did, it was wrong and I was mean and petty and such a terrible friend to you, but mostly to Kara."

Victoire crossed her arms in front of her. "Alright, sit," she said. "Explain."

Brianna pulled the chair out and sat right at the edge, twiddling her thumbs nervously as she tried to decide where to begin.

"I guess I've always been a bit show-off-y," Brianna said. "I like feeling like I'm better than people. I think it started when my father was arrested. People made fun of me and my family and for a while I hated going out in public, because it felt like everywhere we went, someone knew who we were. So I built up this wall to protect myself from the world."

"Keep going," Victoire said when Brianna paused, her voice hard.

"Well I guess I used the fact that you and Kara have no experience with boys to make myself feel like I was better than you. So when William asked Kara to dance, I was so jealous. I was supposed to be the one who was an expert with boys. I was supposed to be dancing and you two were supposed to be the jealous ones, watching from the side of the room while you ate your cauldron cakes.

"Uh huh," Victoire mumbled, indicating that Brianna should continue.

"So then when Kara didn't want to ask him to dance, I thought this was my shot, to go dance with him myself so that you would see how cool and confident I was," Brianna said.

"Yeah, and look how well that turned out," Victoire muttered.

"Yeah, well you guys left, so that pretty much ruined my plan of making you both jealous by dancing with him. So when I got back to the dorm, I made up all this stuff about how we danced all night and how he walked be back and how he kissed me."

"You made all that up?" Victoire asked.

"Yeah, I did," Brianna said. "But then you just got really mad, and I realized how upset Kara was and I was too proud to admit that I'd been wrong and just apologize, so the next morning, I woke up really early and waited for William and his friends and basically forced myself on them. I told William he was going to be my boyfriend and I think he just went along with it because I didn't give him a chance to say no."

"I'm not following," Victoire said. "If you had realized that you'd upset Kara, why would you make it worse by going out William?"

"I had to make it worth it," Brianna said. "It sounds dumb now, but it all made sense then. Anyway, I don't know if 'dated' is the right word for what we did. I followed him around for a while and we sat together, but that was it. Then yesterday, he told me that I was annoying and that he didn't want me around anymore. So I guess he sort-of dumped me. That's when I realized how stupid this all was. I mean, I don't even like William! He's dumb as a doornail and boring as an old shoe. He thinks he's hilarious though, so I kept having to pretend to laugh at all his jokes."

"And so now what?" Victoire asked. "I'm just supposed to forgive you? Forget what happened and act like everything's the same?"

"No," Brianna said. "I know we can't go back to how things were right away. But I'd like the chance to try to win back your trust."

Victoire considered her for a while.

"Alright," she said finally. "If you apologize to Kara and she's on board, then fine. We can try to be friends again. But if she doesn't go for it, then I'm going to have to stick with her."

"I understand," Brianna said, hanging her head. "I have a lot to make up for."

VvVvVvVvVvV

"So Brianna's apologizing?" Teddy asked later in the common room. Brianna had come over and asked Kara if they could talk a few minutes ago, so Victoire had excused herself and joined Teddy on a couch where he's been lounging and pretending to read his Charms textbook.

"Yeah," Victoire said. "She came and found me earlier in the library and made this whole big speech."

"How do you feel about it?" Teddy asked.

"Okay, I guess," Victoire said. "I mean, she was obviously in the wrong, but she's dealing with some stuff too. She had reasons for what she did. Bad reasons, but still reasons."

"Are you going to forgive her?" Teddy asked.

"I don't know yet," Victoire said. "It depends on how Kara reacts. If she can't forgive Brianna, then I don't think I should."

"You know, you shouldn't forgive people based on whether other people forgive them," Teddy said. "You've got to forgive them for yourself. Even if you decide to forgive her, it doesn't mean you have to start being friends again. Not unless you decide you want that too."

"I guess that makes sense," Victoire agreed. "But I just don't know. It's so complicated."

"Welcome to second year," Teddy smiled.

"Tell me it gets better," Victoire pleaded.

"Sorry," Teddy grimaced. "It only gets worse."

"Do you think someday it will get better?" Victoire wondered.

"Maybe," Teddy said. "I guess there are some people that are happy and settled. Your parents, Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny, Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, Grandma and Grandfather Weasley…"

"So I have to wait until I'm my parents' age before things will get better?" Victoire exclaimed.

"Probably not," Teddy assured her. "I'm sure it'll happen sooner than that."

"I wish I knew when," Victoire muttered.

"But then the journey there would be so boring," Teddy said. "Half the fun is not knowing where you're going."

"You're very wise for someone who's only fourteen," Victoire noticed.

"Well thank you," Teddy smiled. "I do try."

"Oh, wait, look!" Victoire said, sitting up and pointing in the direction of her two friends. "They're hugging!"

"I guess Kara's decided to forgive," Teddy said. "The question is, what are you going to do?"

In the end, Victoire decided to forgive Brianna as well. She didn't do it because Kara had, but because she really did want to try and get things back to the way they had been before this whole mess had happened. Brianna seemed genuinely sorry and eager to make things up to them both.

"Go on," Brianna insisted one night. "Dare me to do anything. Anything at all, and I'll do it. It doesn't matter how crazy or embarrassing it is."

"What do you think?" Victoire asked, exchanging a look with Kara. "What should we make her do?"

"I have an idea," Kara smiled. "Come here," she said, indicating that Brianna should lean in close.

Kara whispered the dare into her ear and Brianna's face drained of all color.

"Okay," she declared once Kara had finished telling her the dare. "I can do that," she said, taking a deep breath and walking across the room to a group of seventh years.

"What did you dare her to do?" Victoire asked curiously.

"You'll see," Kara smiled.

Victoire watched as Brianna walked up to one of the seventh year boys and tapped him on the shoulder. She saw Brianna start talking, and then all of a sudden, she was kissing the boy and all his friends were laughing at him.

As soon as she was done, Brianna ran up to the dorm. The boy spluttered, casting his eyes around the room in search of Brianna, but she was long gone.

Giggling furiously, Kara and Victoire ran upstairs to join their other friend.

"Well, there you go, I did it," Brianna cried. "I'll never be able to show my face in the common room again, but that is how important our friendship is to me."

"That was priceless," Victoire laughed. "Kara I can't believe you came up with that."

"I thought it was only fair," Kara said.

"How does that even make sense?" Victoire asked. It had been funny, sure, but how was it fair?

"I don't know," Kara admitted. "I just wanted to see her do it."

The girls continued laughing for a while, until Caitlin came up and shouted at them for being loud and obnoxious when she needed sleep. As the girls got ready for bed, Victoire was just glad that they'd put that horrid month of awfulness behind them and that things could finally go back to normal.


	4. December

Chapter 4: December 2012

The next few weeks passed rather quickly, and before she knew it, Victoire was back home with her family for the Christmas holidays. She was happy to be home, but at the same time, she missed Hogwarts and her friends.

"Victoire?" her mother called up the stairs one day. "I have to run an errand in Diagon Alley. I'm leaving you in charge of your brother and sister. I should only be gone an hour or so."

"Wait, seriously?" Victoire asked, running out of her room and coming to the top of the stairs. "You're leaving me in charge?"

"Sure," her mother said. "You're in your second year now. I think you're more than old enough to keep an eye on your siblings."

"Awesome!" Victoire exclaimed. If she was old enough to babysit Dominique and Louis, it meant no more being shipped off to Aunt Audrey's house to play with Molly and Lucy.

"Dominique, Louis, you mind your sister now!" her mother called out loudly before walking out of the house and disapparating.

Victoire checked in on each of her siblings, but they both seemed fine playing in their rooms, so she returned to her own room and continued to work on her Defence essay. It sucked that she had to do homework over the Christmas holidays, but at least it wasn't all that much.

"Victoire?" Louis asked a few minutes later, appearing at her door. "I'm hungry."

"Okay," Victoire said, putting down her quill. "Well let's go get a snack then."

She led her brother down to the kitchen and sat him at the table while she rooted around in the cupboard. "Do you want some fruit?" she asked.

"No," Louis replied.

"How about some crackers?" Victoire suggested.

"No," Louis shook his head.

"Do you want something specific?" Victoire asked, sensing that Louis had something in mind.

"I want a cookie!" Louis exclaimed.

Victoire sighed. "All right, one cookie," she said. Normally _maman_ saved the cookies for after dinner snacks, but she figured giving Louis one now couldn't hurt. Besides, wasn't that how babysitting was supposed to work? You were supposed to do things that you wouldn't normally be allowed to do if the parents were home.

"Why don't we call Dominique down and see if she wants a cookie too?" Victoire suggested.

"Okay!" Louis exclaimed, running upstairs to get their sister. While he was gone, Victoire popped a cookie into her own mouth. If her siblings were having them, so would she.

Once Dominique had eaten her cookie, Louis asked if they could all play a game.

"What do you want to play?" Victoire asked.

"What about hide and seek?" Louis suggested. "We can practice for Christmas at the Burrow."

"Yeah!" Dominique exclaimed. "Victoire, you count," she declared.

"Alright," Victoire said. "But let's keep the same rule as at the Burrow – no bathrooms." She said. Her siblings nodded and she began to count. "One… Two… Three…"

When she reached fifty, she announced that she was coming and began to search. She started by doing a sweep of the first floor, but found nothing, so she headed up to the second floor. She checked Louis' room first, and when she couldn't find either of them, she moved on to Domi's. She checked her room next and found Dominique hiding in her closet.

"Found you," Victoire smiled.

"Aw man," Dominique grumbled.

"Alright, where's your brother?" Victoire asked.

"I can't tell you," Dominique sang. "That's against the rules."

There was only one room left that Victoire hadn't searched, and that was their parents' bedroom. She tried looking there, Louis was nowhere to be found.

"Okay, Domi, seriously, where's Louis?" Victoire asked.

Dominique mimed zipping her mouth shut.

"Okay, is he on the second floor?" Victoire prompted.

Dominique shook her head.

"So he's on the first floor," Victoire reasoned.

Dominique shrugged, causing Victoire to sigh.

"Alright, let's go check the first floor again," she said, leading her sister back downstairs.

She searched the living room and the kitchen and her father's den, and even the dining room, but there was no Louis. Victoire was starting to get panicked.

"Domi, is Louis on the first floor?" she repeated her question, having received a non-committal answer the first time.

"Not exactly," Dominique admitted.

"So he's on the second floor?" Victoire frowned.

"Nope," Dominique smiled.

"Then where is he?" Victoire cried. "There are only two floors in this house!"

Dominique turned and pointed in the direction of the window.

"He went _outside_?" Victoire screeched, running to the front door and throwing it open. "But Louis knows you're not allowed to go outside!"

"Technically that wasn't in the rules," Dominique pointed out. "You only said no bathrooms."

"I thought it was implied!" Victoire cried, running around the house in search of their brother. If he'd wandered off while she was supposed to be watching her siblings, her parents were going to kill her. "Dominique, help me look!" she cried. "Louis! Louis! You can come out now! You've won!"

There was no answer.

"Were is he?" Victoire cried in fear.

"There he is!" Dominique exclaimed suddenly, pointing towards the water.

Victoire spun around to find that Louis was indeed bobbing up and down in the water.

"Stay here," she ordered Dominique as she ran down to the beach. "Louis!" she cried. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah!" Louis called back.

"Okay, can you swim back over here now?" Victoire asked. She would worry about reprimanding Louis later. For now, she just needed him to come out of the water. One of the biggest rules at Shell Cottage was that there was no swimming unless there was an adult present. Victoire might be old enough to babysit, but she was pretty sure her parents wouldn't consider her old enough to supervise swimming time.

"I can't," Louis called back. "I'm stuck."

"What do you mean you're stuck?" Victoire called back.

"The seaweed," Louis yelled. "It's wrapped around my foot and I can't pull it out."

"You're in the ocean," Victoire called. "It's just a bunch of sand and water. Pull the seaweed out of the sand."

"I can't," Louis insisted. "It's trapped by this really big rock. I can't move it. You need to come and help me."

Not seeing any other choice, Victoire threw off her sweater and waded into the water. It was freezing cold and she was at a loss as to why her brother would choose a cold December day to go swimming. When she got to her brother, she found that there was in fact a large rock trapping the seaweed that was wrapped around his leg. The rock was too big to move, but Victoire was able to free Louis' leg and then together the two swam back to shore.

As soon as they were out of the water, Louis' teeth began to chatter. "It's freezing out here," he said, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Here, take my sweater," Victoire said, picking it up off the sand and pulling it over her brother's head. "We are both going to need a couple of nice long hot showers."

"Uh, Victoire?" Dominique said nervously, running up to meet them. "There's a problem."

"What now?" Victoire asked.

"Well when we ran outside, neither of us took house keys, and the door is charmed to lock when it closes – remember _papa_ put in that security measure a couple years ago?" Dominique asked.

"Don't tell me we're locked out!" Victoire cried.

"We're locked out," Dominique confirmed.

"What are we going to do?" Victoire demanded. "It's freezing out here, Louis was in that water for Merlin knows how long, both our clothes are soaked, and _maman_ is going to kill me!"

"It could be worse," Dominique pointed out.

"How could it possibly be worse?" Victoire demanded.

"I could be all wet too," Dominique said.

About twenty minutes later, their mother returned home to find the three of them sitting on the front stoop looking guilty.

" _Qu'est-ce que vous faites_?" their mother asked. "Victoire, why are you and Louis all wet, and what are you doing outside?"

"It's all my fault," Louis said, hanging his head. "I'm the one that went outside."

"No, it's my fault," Victoire disagreed. "I was in charge, so I should have been more responsible."

"Well it wasn't my fault," Dominique spoke up. "I was just trying to help Victoire find Louis."

"You lost your brother?" their mother cried.

"No, we were just playing hide and seek, and for some reason, Louis decided to hide in the water," Victoire said.

"Louis," their mother said, opening the door and letting her children into the warm house. "You know you're not supposed to go outside without letting someone know. And you know you're not supposed to go swimming without an adult."

"I know," Louis said apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"Okay, well you two, go change out of those clothes and warm up," their mother said. "We'll talk about this when your father gets home."

Filled with trepidation for what was to come, Victoire took her younger brother upstairs and turned on the shower for him before going into her own room to find some warm clothes.

"Victoire!" her mother's voice yelled up the stairs. "Did you let your siblings eat cookies before dinner?" she roared.

"Oops," Victoire muttered. "Forgot to put the box away."

VvVvVvVvVvV

In the end, Victoire and Louis were grounded until the end of the Christmas holidays and their parents decided that twelve was too young to keep watch over her siblings. Victoire was a little mad, but she also knew most of what had happened was her own fault.

Soon, it was time for the big Weasley family Christmas Eve dinner. It was the one thing Victoire's parents were letting Victoire and Louis leave the house for during their punishment, and even at that, they had both been banned from the house-wide game of hide and seek with the cousins.

"Victoire?" Molly asked when they arrived. "Louis? Aren't you coming upstairs?"

"No," Victoire replied. "I don't feel like playing this year." She didn't want all her cousins knowing she was being punished.

Since she wasn't allowed to play with the cousins, and the adults were being extremely boring, talking about their jobs and other such nonsense, Victoire wandered out to the garden and sat in the shade of a nearby tree, watching the gnomes sneaking around and burrowing holes into the ground.

"So I heard you got grounded," Teddy said, appearing next to Victoire and sitting down with her under the tree.

"Where did you hear that?" Victoire demanded.

"Louis," Teddy said. "He's wandering the house whining about how you're both grounded and how you can't play hide and seek and how it's a travesty because he had a really good hiding spot for this year."

Victoire rolled her eyes. "He's just being dramatic. He's always easy enough to find."

"I heard that wasn't the case a few days ago," Teddy smirked.

"He told you about that too?" Victoire groaned.

"So you managed to lose a kid and get locked out of the house, and then on top of everything, you got caught feeding them junk food?" Teddy summed up.

"That sounds about right," Victoire muttered. "Go ahead, say it. I'm an utter failure."

"Nah," Teddy said. "The first time I babysat for Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny, I almost let James burn the house down."

"Wait, seriously?" Victoire asked.

"Yeah," Teddy said. "He had the matches, he had enough newspaper to at least burn down the living room. Luckily I caught him before he did any real damage. There is a small burn hole in Uncle Harry's couch now though."

"So that's where that came from!" Victoire exclaimed. "I was wondering about that when I visited last summer."

"Yup, that's what that is," Teddy confirmed. "It can be real tough, keeping an eye on kids. If they're determined to do something, they're going to go for it, and sometimes there's not much you can do to stop them unless you know ahead of time what they're planning."

" _Maman_ and _papa_ don't think I should watch Domi and Louis anymore," Victoire said sadly.

"Give it time. They'll come around. Besides, the older you get, the more responsible you'll be," Teddy assured her.

Victoire nodded. "You didn't want to play hide and seek?" she asked, realizing that Teddy was missing the game.

"Nah," Teddy shrugged. "Molly's just bossing everyone around anyway."

Well I just hope it's not on account of me," Victoire said.

"Definitely not," Teddy said, shaking his head. "No, this is all about me."

Victoire laughed. "Well thanks anyway," she said. "It was getting pretty lonely out here."

"No problem," Teddy smiled back.

VvVvVvVvVvV

The Weasley family Quidditch game started a little while later and Victoire and Teddy headed to join the rest of the family by the Weasley family Quidditch pitch. The same eight people from the previous year were playing, but they shuffled the teams around a bit so that it was Aunt Angelina, Uncle Ron, Aunt Ginny, and Uncle Charlie against her father, Uncle Harry, Uncle George, and Teddy.

The game didn't last long though, because Uncle George accidentally hit Aunt Angelina in the head with his beater's bat when he was really aiming for the bludger, and they had to cut the game short to ice Aunt Angelina's head.

Dinner was delicious as usual, and soon everyone was gathering in the living room for Secret Santa.

"What order should we go in this year?" Grandma Weasley wondered. She asked the same question every year.

"Well we did alphabetical last year," Molly said. "This year let's go in order of age!"

"Age it is," Grandma Weasley declared. "So I guess that means Arthur goes first."

It turned out that Grandfather Weasley had gotten Dominique this year and had gotten her something he called a frisbee. It was another Muggle toy that you were supposedly supposed throw around when you were outside. Dominique thanked him and Victoire wondered how a small disk was supposed to be any fun to play with.

Next it was Grandma Weasley's turn. She had gotten Roxanne's name and had gotten her a toy cauldron set. It came with it's own 'ingredients' and a mini-cauldron, and you could add the ingredients together to create different effects. It was totally safe, of course, and Roxanne loved it. She was always trying to brew 'potions' in the bathroom with the things she could find under the sink and this would be so much more fun.

Aunt Audrey got Teddy's name and gave him a book about being prepared for O.W.L. year. "You'll be a fifth year soon," she said. "You need to be prepared."

Teddy had been given Molly's name and had in turn bought her a history book about the creation of the British Ministry of Magic – she loved that sort of thing.

After Teddy, it was Victoire's turn. She had drawn Uncle Percy's name and had bought him a brand new super-fancy quill for his office. He told her he loved it and that he would use it everyday.

Dominique had drawn Uncle George's name and her gift to him was a huge box that he opened to find was completely empty. "Fooled you!" Dominique cried. Uncle George laughed and said the prank was better than any gift she could have bought.

Louis had gotten their father and told him that his gift would be that he would clean his room without being asked for the rest of the year.

When Fred's turn arrived, Victoire discovered that he'd drawn her name. He gave her a large gift bag. When she dove in to find the present, she ended up finding an old sweater that she'd lost two years back.

"Fred, where did you find this?" she asked.

"I accidentally spilled my juice on the sleeve. You left it on a chair and I didn't see it until it was too late. I was afraid you'd be mad, so I took it home with me and then I forgot about it. But I had Mommy help me make it like new again, so Merry Christmas!" Fred said.

Victoire smiled and hugged her little cousin. "Well thank you Fred, I'm glad to have it back," she said. "You know; I think it looks even better than it did before!"

Roxanne gave her gift to Rose next, and then Hugo and Lily discovered that they had drawn each other's names. Once the Secret Santa gifts were given out, Grandma Weasley snuck into the next room and returned with the traditional Weasley sweaters that she always insisted on making for everyone despite the Secret Santa tradition that she's implemented herself.

This year, Victoire's sweater was dark blue and the large V on the front was white. It looked a lot better, she thought, then the red and gold sweater she'd gotten last year in honor of her getting into Gryffindor. When everybody had their sweaters on, they lined up outside the Burrow for their annual family portrait.

When it was time to go home, Victoire hugged all her Aunts and Uncles and cousins and then stepped into the Floo to return home. It was late, so she and her siblings went to sleep as soon as they got home.

Victoire awoke the next morning to the sound of Louis screaming that it was Christmas and that their presents had arrived. Moments later, Victoire could hear Dominique up and running about. Throwing on her newest Weasley sweater, Victoire rolled out of bed to join her family in the living room.

"Merry Christmas!" her father greeted her.

" _Joyeux Noel_!" her mother added. "Guess who came to visit?"

"Aunt Gabrielle?" Victoire cried, noticing her Aunt's shoes at the front entrance.

" _Oui!_ " her Aunt exclaimed, appearing from the kitchen with her arms outstretched.

Victoire ran forward to give her Aunt a hug and then they all settled around the tree to open presents.

"Color-changing nail polish!" Victoire cried when she opened her gift from Aunt Gabrielle. "No way! This is so cool!"

"And it lasts twice as long as normal nail polish does," her Aunt explained. "It's all on the bottle. _Joyeux Noel_!"

After opening their presents, everyone headed into the kitchen for a big Christmas breakfast. _Maman_ cooked while Aunt Gabrielle puttered around the kitchen pretending to help. Everyone knew she really wasn't – Aunt Gabrielle was a terrible cook – but it made her feel better to pretend she was contributing.

"So Gabrielle," Victoire's father said as they all sat down to mountains of bacon, eggs, sausages, pancakes, waffles, toast, and jam. "What are you up to these days?"

"Oh, _un peu de çi, un peu de ça_ ," Gabrielle replied. "I am heading off to Greece for a few weeks soon to take some photos of their Quidditch team. Have you heard? They're one of the leading teams, likely to be in the finals this summer."

Aunt Gabrielle was a photographer who travelled the world taking photos for various newspapers. Victoire was so jealous – Aunt Gabrielle was so cool, and her job sounded amazing! She wished she could be like Aunt Gabrielle one day.

"Will you be around for New Year's?" Bill asked.

" _Non_ ," Aunt Gabrielle said. "Sadly, I must leave the day before. But I will be back in time to celebrate _maman's_ birthday," she assured them.

This year would be _Grand-maman Delacour's_ sixtieth birthday and they were going to have a big party for her at the end of January at her house in France. Unfortunately, Victoire would be at school and wouldn't be able to go.

"And do you know where you'll be heading out to after that?" her father asked.

" _Non_ ," Aunt Gabrielle said. "I am hoping to maybe do a little sightseeing, take a break from work and travel a bit.

"But you travel _for_ work," Victoire said.

" _Oui_ _chèrie_ ," Aunt Gabrielle agreed. "But I don't always have time to properly enjoy the places I visit, because I'm always working. I want to lie on a beach in Greece and sample chocolate in a little _chocolaterie_ in Switzerland.

"Will you be here for my eleventh birthday in June?" Dominique asked. "It's going to be a lot of fun!"

" _Je ne sais pas_ ," Aunt Gabrielle told her. "June is still months away. I would love to come to your party though _ma belle_."

Aunt Gabrielle ended up not staying long, claiming that she had to go visit her mother before she headed off to Greece for three weeks. Victoire and her siblings spent the rest of the afternoon playing with their Christmas gifts, even going so far as to try out Dominique's new Frisbee, which turned out to actually be a lot of fun. By the end of the day, they were tired, but happy. All in all, it had been a good Christmas.


	5. January

Chapter 5: January 2013

All too soon, the Christmas holidays were over and was heading back to Hogwarts.

"This is the last time you'll get on the train without me!" Dominique noted at King's Cross station as Victoire dragged her trunk up the stairs of the train.

"Yeah," Victoire said, envisioning what it would be like next year with her sister at Hogwarts. Though she loved Dominique, she had to say that she was looking forward to the next six months without her. "Well, I'll see you in June!" she said.

"You mean you're not coming home for Easter again?" Louis whined.

"Probably not," Victoire apologized to her brother. "It's right at the end of term when they assign us tons of homework."

"I never used to go home for the Easter hols," their father commented. "I remember Professor McGonagall used to love assigning lots of work over Easter to keep us nice and busy."

"Yeah, Professor Tonks does that too," Victoire said. "Not to mention, Professor Binns keeps hinting that he's going to assign _another_ term paper for the second term. It sounds like it's going to be even more involved than the last one."

"Well good luck _chèrie_ ," Victoire's mother said, giving her a kiss on the forehead. "Have a good term."

The train began to move and Victoire went in search of her friends.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"What is _that_?" Brianna cried when they returned to their dorm later that night. There was a creature sitting in the middle of her bed licking itself.

"Oh, that's just Ricky," Raina replied. "My parents gave him to me for Christmas. He's a kneazle."

Ricky reminded Victoire a lot of her Aunt Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, except that while Crookshanks had golden fur, Ricky was all black.

"Well what's he doing on my bed?" Brianna demanded.

"I think he likes your scent," Raina said. "Come on Ricky, time to leave Brianna alone," she called. "Come on Ricky, come here."

Ricky completed ignored Raina.

"Okay, seriously, if that thing is still on my bed in one minute – "

"He's not a thing, he's a kneazle," Raina corrected, walking over and picking Ricky up. "Come on Ricky, you can lie on my bed," she said, putting him down on her pillow as she finished her unpacking.

"You better keep him over there," Brianna muttered. "I don't want car hair all over my stuff."

"He's a _kneazle_ ," Raina stressed. " _Kneazle_."

"Whatever," Brianna shrugged. "He's a hairball that needs to learn to stay in your part of the room."

Over the next few days, tension between Brianna and Raina only escalated. It turned out that one of Ricky's favorite hobbies was taking pieces of clothing and making little nests out of them. For some reason, he'd taken a particular liking to Brianna, and so every day while they were in class, he would sneak over to her trunk and find a sweater or nice top to curl up in and rip to shreds.

"I can't take it anymore," Brianna exploded one afternoon. "If you can't control him, then you need to get rid of him."

"Why can't you just lock your trunk?" Raina demanded. "Then he wouldn't be able to get inside."

"I shouldn't have to lock my trunk in my own room," Brianna threw back.

"By leaving it lying open the way you do, you're only enticing him to take your clothes," Raina insisted.

"Caitlin leaves her clothes all over the place and I don't see Ricky tearing up any of them. He has something against me, I can see it in his eyes. He has got to go!" Brianna screamed.

"No way, I know my rights," Raina said. "According to the Hogwarts rules, students are each allowed to have one owl and one other pet from the list of approved animals. I've done nothing wrong."

"What you've done is let Ricky think that it's okay to destroy other people's private property," Brianna said. "If you'd reprimanded him from the beginning, maybe he would have learned by now, but at this point he's just going to keep tearing things up."

"Maybe if you kept him in a cage during the day – "

"Oh no!" Raina cried, interrupting Victoire mid-sentence. "Ricky's not some uncontrollable beast who needs to be locked up. Kneazles need to be able to roam free, not be cooped up day and night in some horrid cage."

"I was just trying to help – "

"Well don't," Raina cried. "I've followed all the rules this time. This isn't like with the Shrivelfig and the illegal fertilizer. Ricky is allowed to be here and I intend on keeping him.

The next day, Brianna visited Madam Eldridge in the hospital wing, claiming that she was having an allergic reaction to Raina's new pet kneazle. She'd hoped that it would result in Raina having to give up the pet, but instead, Madam Eldridge gave her an allergy potion to take twice a day.

"I'm sick of this," Brianna grumbled later that night in the common room. "Look at him over there, destroying my lavender sweater." Victoire looked where Brianna was pointing and just like she'd said, he was dragging the now tattered sweater behind him as he followed Raina back up to the dorm.

"You know, maybe you should just lock your trunk," Victoire suggested.

"I can't do that!" Brianna exclaimed.

"Why not?" Kara asked. "If it would stop him from taking your clothes – "

"It's the principle of the matter!" Brianna cried. "I have to stand up for myself."

"But at this rate, you're not going to have any clothes left," Victoire pointed out.

"Don't worry about that," Brianna assured her friends. "I'm keeping track of everything that cat has ripped up. Once I get rid of Ricky, I'm going to be giving Raina a nice list of everything she has to reimburse me for."

Meanwhile, things weren't going so well for Victoire in school. She was doing fine in most of her classes, but recently, her grades in Charms had been slipping. It had started before the Christmas holidays, but she'd figured it was just a lack of enthusiasm due to the upcoming holidays. Now though, it was becoming clear that she was facing a serious problem. Professor Flitwick had suggested she ask her friend for some help, but she was too proud to admit to Kara or Brianna that she was failing.

"Whatcha workin' on there?" Teddy asked one day while Victoire was studying in the library. Kara and Brianna were back in the common room.

"Nothing," Victoire said hurriedly, shutting her Charms book with her assignment inside to hide it from him.

"Oh, hiding something are you?" Teddy smiled. "Come on, tell me. Is it a love letter? Do you have a secret boyfriend you haven't told me about?"

"No," Victoire said. "It's nothing like that."

"Then why won't you let me see?" Teddy demanded.

"It's just homework," Victoire said. "No big deal."

"No big deal? We'll see about that." Teddy grabbed the book out from in front of Victoire, causing her to shriek and chase after him through the shelves.

"No running in the library!" Madam Maxwell hissed at them. "And be quiet or I'll have to ask you to leave."

"Sorry," Victoire and Teddy replied.

As soon as she'd left, Teddy started to run again, this time sure to keep quiet so the librarian wouldn't catch him. Victoire tried to run after him, but she was too slow and when she caught up to him, he had opened her book.

"It's just a charms assignment," Teddy said, disappointed.

"I told you it was just homework," Victoire insisted, snatching it back from him. "Will you leave me alone now?" She stalked back to her table and plopped down in her chair.

"Why were you hiding your charms assignment?" Teddy asked.

"No reason," Victoire sniffed, trying to pretend she was all superior.

"Come on Victoire, you can tell me," Teddy insisted.

Victoire sighed. "Fine," she said finally. "But you can't tell anyone, especially not Kara or Brianna." She took a deep breath. "I'm failing Charms. This is some remedial work Professor Flitwick assigned me to help me catch up."

"Oh," Teddy said. "Well that's not so bad. It's just one subject and you're only in second year."

"Yeah, but if I don't catch up, I'm only going to fall farther and farther behind," Victoire said. "First I fail a few assignments, next I'm failing my end-of-year exam. Then I'm failing summer school and next thing I know, I'm the only third year still taking second year Charms."

"That is not going to happen," Teddy promised. "You're smart, you can figure this out. What's holding you back?"

"It started back in December when we started to learn the engorgement charm," Victoire said. "I could never get the spell right. Actually, I still can't."

"Have you covered the shrinking charm yet?" Teddy wondered.

"We just started last week," Victoire said. "And I can't seem to get that either. Nothing works for me. I do the wand motion, and I cast the spell, and nothing happens."

"I think I know what's wrong," Teddy said. "Size charms have a slightly complicated wand motion. You're probably just doing it wrong."

"Professor Flitwick says I don't understand the theory of the size spells," Victoire disagreed. "He says I need to have the theory completely grasped before I should try casting them again."

"Do you completely understand the theory of the severing charm?" Teddy asked.

"No," Victoire admitted.

"But I've seen you cast it," Teddy said.

"So what?" Victoire asked.

"So, I think Professor Flitwick is getting a little old and senile. Trust me, it's your hand motion. Just show me what you're doing and let me try to correct it."

"Alright," Victoire said hesitantly, pulling out her wand.

"No magic in the library!" Madam Maxwell snapped, appearing from behind a stack of books as if she was waiting for Victoire to do something wrong.

"Sorry!" Victoire apologized, shoving her wand back in her bag.

"Come on," Teddy suggested. "The Charms classroom is just down the hall. Professor Flitwick always leaves it open, we can practice in there."

Victoire gathered up her things and followed Teddy out of the library to the Charms classroom. When they got there, she dropped her bag by the door and held her wand in her hand.

"Alright, now what?" she asked.

"Try using the engorgement charm on that pot of ink," Teddy suggested, gesturing to some ink that was left behind on a nearby desk.

Victoire pointed her wand at the inkwell and focused all her energy on it. "Engorgio," she said, flicking her wand up in a diagonal fashion and the looping it around. She waited, but nothing happened.

"I was right," Teddy said. "You need to work on your wand motion, watch me."

Teddy pulled his wand from his pocket and swished it in the air, saying the incantation. In seconds, the inkwell had grown to twice it's size.

"I don't see a difference," Victoire complained. "You did the same thing I did."

"Watch again," Teddy said. "See how when I loop around, it's a smooth motion? When you do it, you make a sharp dip before looping back up."

Teddy did the spell again, this time shrinking the inkwell back to it's normal size.

"Okay, let me try again," Victoire said, thinking she saw the problem. "Engorgio," she said, whipping her wand around. Once again, nothing happened.

"You're still doing it," Teddy said. "You're going too far down and it's messing you up. Here, feel the motion." Teddy reached over and wrapped his hand around Victoire's, guiding her wand through the correct motion.

"Okay, I think I get it now," Victoire said. "Let me try again." She cast the spell a third time, again to no avail. "Hang on, I made the same mistake. Give me a second." She flicked her wand a few times to loosen up her wrist until she felt confident enough to try the spell again for real. "Okay, here I go," she said. She flicked her wand upward and looped it around, chanting the incantation and just as it was meant to, the inkwell began to grow. "I did it!" she cried in excitement.

"See?" Teddy asked. "I told you it was just a simple hand motion problem."

"Wait, let me try something," Victoire said, pointing her wand at the inkwell again. She concentrated and cast the shrinking charm, making sure to keep her wand motion fluid. As expected, the inkwell shrunk back to its original size. "This is amazing!" Victoire cried. "I can't believe it was such a simple problem!"

"It usually is," Teddy smiled.

"Thanks, by the way," Victoire said. "You saved me. I never would have fixed that on my own."

"It was no big deal," Teddy shrugged. "It was a simple fix."

"Yeah, but now I can show Professor Flitwick and I can stop having to do all this remedial work. You're the best," Victoire said, giving Teddy a hug before heading off to the common room.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Okay Raina," Brianna said the next evening up in the dorm. "I've been doing some research and I have in my hand, a list of the approved Hogwarts pets that are allowed to be kept by students in their dorms. Let me read it out to you: cats, rats, toads, puffskeins, crups, and owls. _Not_ kneazles."

"Did you happen to notice what year that list came out in?" Raina asked. "Because kneazles were added to the list in 1986 after it was discovered that they could be domesticated."

Brianna huffed.

"What year is this list from?" Victoire wondered.

"The 1950s I think," Brianna responded under her breath. "It was the only one I could find."

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Truth or dare?" Kara asked Victoire Saturday night as the girls took a break from their homework for the evening.

"Truth," Victoire decided.

"Who do you like better, me or Brianna?" Kara asked.

"What kind of question is that?" Victoire asked in indignation.

"The kind of question you have to answer," Kara said.

"I can't answer a question like that," Victoire protested. "It's totally unfair."

"No question is off-limits in truth or dare," Brianna said.

"Fine, then I guess Kara," Victoire admitted. "Sorry Bri, but I'm still a little upset about the whole Halloween/William Shimpling thing."

"I guess I deserve that," Brianna sighed.

"Truth or dare?" Victoire asked Brianna.

"Truth," Brianna said.

"Who do you like better, me or Kara?" Victoire asked.

"Right now, Kara," Brianna admitted. "Because you just picked her over me."

Victoire made a face. "Whatever," she said.

"Kara, truth or dare?" Brianna asked.

"Dare," Kara said immediately. "I'm not answering that question."

"I dare you to throw Ricky out the window," Brianna declared.

"Whoa! Hold on," Victoire said. "You can't dare her to do that!"

"Why not?" Brianna asked. "This is truth or dare. Anything goes."

"Because it's animal cruelty and definitely against the rules and it'll probably kill Ricky – "

"All the more reason – "

"And Raina would be devastated, and we would get in a _ton_ of trouble – "

"A dare is a dare – "

"I'm sorry Brianna, but I'm veto-ing your dare," Victoire declared.

"Just give me the truth," Kara rolled her eyes.

"Fine, who do you like better, me or Victoire?" Brianna asked.

"Victoire," Kara declared.

"I thought we put November behind us," Brianna said.

"We did," Kara said. "But you just asked me to throw a kneazle out the window."

"Fair enough," Brianna shrugged.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"I'm sorry Brianna," Professor Longbottom said on Monday when Brianna confronted him about Ricky. "Raina is perfectly within her rights as a student to have a pet kneazle in the dorm."

"But he keeps getting into my stuff!" Brianna insisted.

"Perhaps you should consider keeping your trunk locked during the day?" Professor Longbottom suggested.

"Ugh!" Brianna threw her hands up into the air. "What is wrong with the world?"

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Victoire, good job," Professor Flitwick congratulated her in their next Charms class. "You've really mastered these spells. I bet it was all that research I had you do. Do you feel like you understand the spells better now?"

"Absolutely," Victoire lied. "I really think all that extra work helped."

"Well good," Professor Flitwick patted her on the arm. "Keep it up."

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Brianna's doing what?" Teddy asked the next evening as he, Victoire, and Kara played a game of exploding snap in the common room.

"She's researching spells for de-clawing a kneazle," Kara repeated. "She seems to think it'll solve all of her problems."

"You know spells like that are definitely above her skill level," Teddy pointed out. "How does she expect to pull it off."

"I don't know," Victoire shrugged. "Maybe she'll ask you to do it."

"I'm not going to go around secretly de-clawing other people's pets," Teddy said. "You can tell her no way."

"She has gone a little insane," Victoire agreed.

"Why can't she just keep her trunk closed?" Teddy asked.

"Apparently, it's the principle of the matter," Kara quoted.

"That's ridiculous. She's basically inviting Ricky to take her clothes," Teddy said.

"Don't let Brianna hear you say that," Victoire warned. "Raina told her the same thing and she flipped out."

"Noted," Teddy said, dealing a new hand. "Hey, what if one of you just locked her trunk in the morning after she left for class?"

"Tried that," Kara sighed.

"It didn't work?" Teddy asked.

"Brianna refused to talk to us for the rest of the day when she found out," Victoire rolled her eyes. "Said we were siding with Raina and that if we were true friends, we'd let her do things her way."

"That's ridiculous," Teddy said.

"That's Bri for you," Kara muttered.

Just then, Brianna entered the common room and screamed.

"What's wrong Bri?" Victoire asked, running to her friend's aide.

"That – that _monster_ ," she cried, pointing at Ricky curled up in a ball in the corner of the room.

"What's wrong?" Victoire asked.

"That is my _favorite_ sweater," Brianna said. "It's the one with the little design on the bottom, remember?"

Victoire did remember. It was a really nice sweater.

"Raina!" Brianna cried, storming up to the dorms, Kara and Victoire right behind her. "Have you seen Ricky today?"

"Yeah, he's down in the common room with some old sweater," Raina said. "If you want him to stay out of your stuff, just close your trunk. You don't even have to lock it; I don't think he's strong enough to open it if it's shut."

"That's not just _some_ sweater," Brianna screamed. "That's my favorite sweater. I looked amazing in that sweater and now he's _ruined_ it."

"I don't understand why you're so surprised," Raina said. "He's been stealing your sweaters for weeks now, it's nothing new."

"You were supposed to train him to stop," Brianna cried.

"I've been trying, but he seems really set in his ways," Raina shrugged. "I keep my trunk closed and he doesn't rip up any of my clothes."

"I – you – I – Ugh!" Brianna screamed, storming into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her.

"Should we – " Kara looked questioningly from the bathroom door to Victoire.

"Let's give her some time to cool down," Victoire suggested, returning to the common room to continue their game of exploding snap.

"Where's Brianna?" Teddy asked when they sat back down.

"Probably trying to drown herself in the sink," Kara muttered.

"She's kidding," Victoire assured Teddy when he gave them an alarmed look. "She's just blowing off some steam.

In the end, Brianna caved and started keeping her trunk closed. It worked excellently. Ricky stopped stealing her clothes and it actually caused Caitlin to start keeping her stuff a little neater when Ricky started going after her things. Though Brianna and Raina still couldn't stand to be alone in the dorm at the same time, things in the second-year girls' dorms were on their way back to normal.


	6. February

Chapter 6: February 2013

As February arrived, Victoire found herself falling into a routine. Every morning she awoke, showered and got dressed. Then she, Brianna, and Kara went down to the Great Hall for breakfast. The days passed slowly, with class after class, broken up midday by lunch. After last period, the girls would work on their homework in the library until dinner, and after dinner they would sit up in the common room playing exploding snap or else they would paint their nails in the dorms. It was predictable and it was boring.

"I want to do something different," Victoire announced one day in the middle of a game of exploding snap.

"What do you mean?" Kara asked.

"We do the same thing day in and day out," Victoire said. "I want to do something different."

"What kind of thing?" Brianna asked.

"Well I don't know," Victoire cried, throwing up her hands in frustration. "Just something different."

"You could join a club," Kara suggested.

"Ugh, clubs are so lame," Victoire shook her head. "The only people who join clubs are people who are trying to make friends because they're too lame to do it on their own."

"What about people who actually have an interest in what the club is about?" Kara asked.

Victoire refused to concede her point.

"Well if you don't know what you want to do, then I don't know what you expect us to do," Brianna said.

"I've got it!" Victoire exclaimed. "Let's have a snowball fight!"

"A snowball fight?" Brianna asked skeptically. "You want to go outside and throw snow at each other?"

"Oh come on, it'll be fun!" Victoire said. "More fun than sitting around up here playing exploding snap all night."

"It's already seven o'clock," Brianna pointed out. "And it's the middle of winter."

"I think the winter thing might be kind of a key part of having a snowball fight," Kara pointed out.

"Aw, come on Bri," Victoire pouted. "Curfew's not for another two hours."

"Fine," Brianna conceded. "But if you guys hit me in the face, I'm going to be really upset."

Excitedly, Victoire ran up to the dorms to throw on her winter gear, her friends following a few steps behind her. It would be pretty cold outside this late in the day, so Victoire made sure to wear an extra-thick sweater as well as a hat, scarf, and mittens. She thought about wearing her winter cloak, but decided against it – she wouldn't have much mobility for running and diving if she were wearing a cloak.

As soon as they were ready, the three girls trooped down to the Entrance Hall and pushed the front doors open, descending into the Entrance Courtyard. They headed towards the lake, making sure to stop before they got too close lest they accidentally slipped on it's icy surface. They gave themselves ten minutes to each build a wall and start forming snowballs, and then the fight begun.

Victoire threw the first snowball, lobbing it into the air and aiming for Kara. Unfortunately, Kara dove and the snowball landed on the ground at her side.

"Come on guys, you've got to participate," Victoire said when her friends both cowered behind their walls. She stood up and took a few steps forward, hands on her hips. "If you're just going to hide back there, we might as well just go back in – "

She wasn't able to finish her sentence because at that moment, she was bombarded by snowballs coming from both sides.

"Oh, it is on!" Victoire cried, running back to her wall to load up on snowballs. She tossed a snowball in Brianna's direction, missing by a fraction of an inch. Then she waited a minute and while Kara was distracted, aiming a snowball at Brianna, she launched one in her direction, hitting her right in the shoulder.

As they continued throwing the snowballs, some Hufflepuffs from their class passed by and saw the fun.

"Hey, can we join in?" Maya Watson asked.

"Sure!" Victoire called back, abandoning her wall to the Hufflepuffs and diving behind Kara's. Suddenly, the game had turned into Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff and it quickly became clear that the Hufflepuffs were winning.

"Hey!" Brianna called out suddenly, when she noticed her sister Savannah and some friends passing by. "Come join in! We could use some help on our side!"

Savannah and her friends hurried over and began forming snowballs for Kara to lob over the wall. She had the best aim of all of them and by far was hitting more of their opponents than the rest of them.

"Hey, can we play too?" Some passing third-year Ravenclaws asked.

"Sure, the more the merrier!" Victoire called out.

The Ravenclaws claimed Brianna's now abandoned wall and the game once again became three-sided; Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw.

"You guys are having a snowball fight and didn't invite me?" Teddy asked, coming up on the Gryffindor side with a bunch of his buddies. "We saw you through the window."

"Sorry," Victoire apologized. "We didn't know it would get this big. If you're in, try and hit some of the Ravenclaws, they're beating our pants off."

A few minutes later, a group of Slytherins came over and quickly built a fourth wall, joining in the fun. More students started trickling out of the castle to see what the commotion was and more and more students, even the seventh years, started to play. The small walls that Victoire, Kara, and Brianna had originally built suddenly became whole fortresses. It seemed like the whole school had come out to participate. Victoire could even have sworn she saw some of her Professors join in for a minute to lob a snowball or two.

"Alright, curfew's in ten minutes, time to rap it up!" Hogwarts' Head Boy eventually called out. Everybody groaned. "Sorry," he apologized. "Mr. Filch locks the doors at nine sharp and I know none of you wants to be trapped outside all night.

Reluctantly, everyone started trooping back inside, dripping wet from all the snow. Victoire was completely soaked, having at one point been his with seven or eight snowballs all at once.

"That was really fun," Brianna admitted as they climbed up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower.

"I told you we needed to do something different," Victoire smirked. "And you wanted to play exploding snap all night." She shook her head mockingly.

"Hey, I can admit that I was wrong," Brianna said, holding her hands up in surrender.

"It was a lot of fun," Kara agreed. "Maybe we should make it a Hogwarts tradition – you know, every February we all go out and have a big school-wide snowball fight."

"Yeah, maybe," Victoire shrugged. "For now I think I'd just like to put on some dry clothes and maybe take a hot shower."

"Oh, yes please," Kara sighed just at the thought.

" _Gillyweed_ ," Brianna muttered when they reached the Fat Lady. The portrait hole swung open and they entered the common room.

Victoire hopped in the shower almost the minute they got upstairs and tossed her soggy clothes down the laundry chute for the house elves to take care of. They would be receiving a lot of wet clothes tonight, she thought. When she finally curled up in her warm bed, she was content. It had been a fun evening.

VvVvVvVvVvV

Soon Valentine's Day arrived, and with it, many of the older students started acting strange. Everywhere in the halls, people were holding hands and kissing. It made Victoire a little uncomfortable sometimes. In honor of the occasions, the ceiling of the Great Hall had been enchanted so that small pink and red confetti was falling from it, but disappearing before it reached the students' heads. Little chocolates were scattered across the tables, even at breakfast time, and Victoire had discovered a candy heart next to her head on her pillow when she'd awoken that morning.

"What's so special about Valentine's day anyway?" Victoire muttered as she and her friends tried to make it to Herbology while avoiding as many kissing couples as they could.

"I think it's sweet," Kara said. "It's a day to celebrate love!"

"Yeah, but can't you do that any day?" Victoire asked. "Why does everyone have to be all ooey gooey and lovey dovey at the same time?"

"One day you'll be in love and Valentine's Day won't seem so silly," Brianna assured her.

Victoire scoffed. "I doubt it," she said. "I'm never going to be one of those people that can't make it five seconds without seeing her boyfriend, or can't make it to class without kissing him."

"Alright," Brianna allowed. "That's fine. But maybe for some people, they like being with each other all the time."

"It just feels so orchestrated," Victoire shrugged. "Just because it's Valentine's Day, everyone's suddenly so much more in love than they were yesterday. It's ridiculous!"

"Come on," Brianna rolled her eyes. "Let's just get to class."

Classes were no more fun than any other part of the day. In Herbology, Professor Longbottom thought it would be fun to learn about plant reproduction and germination. Victoire was pretty sure he'd missed the romantic parts of Valentine's Day, because germination definitely wasn't all lovey-dovey.

In Potions, Professor Abbott-Longbottom introduced them to different types of love potions, but wouldn't let them come too close, because the smell could be overwhelming and she didn't want any accidents happening.

Defence wasn't much better than Herbology. Professor Leftbridge taught them some harmless defensive jinxes they could use if ever they found themselves dealing with someone too clingy on a holiday like today. Victoire was pretty sure it wasn't even Defence class anymore – how was a clingy girlfriend or boyfriend comparable to 'the Dark Arts'?

Only in their final class of the day did they do actual work, and Victoire was pretty sure it was because Professor Binns had no idea what day it even was, let alone what year. They talked about the International Confederation of Wizards for the hour-long period and then they were dismissed.

"I'm so fed up with this day!" Victoire exclaimed as they returned to the common room. "Everywhere we go, everything's about love, love, love!"

"What's got you so bitter?" Brianna asked.

"I don't know," Victoire shrugged.

When they got to the common room, they decided to play a few rounds of exploding snap before getting started on their homework. Just because it was Valentine's Day didn't mean their Professors had eased up on their workload. Kara and Brianna ran upstairs to find the deck and Victoire chose a good spot to play where the carpet was nice and soft.

"Hey Teddy," Victoire called out to the boy emerging from the boys' dorms. "We're about to play exploding snap. Grab Billy and we'll deal for five."

"Oh, I can't actually," Teddy said, his face flushing. "I – I'm meeting someone."

"Who?" Victoire asked with a frown. "Billy?"

"N-No, not exactly," Teddy stammered.

"Then who?" Victoire demanded.

"I sort of… have a date," Teddy revealed.

"Oh!" Victoire exclaimed, realization dawning on her. Of course he would. It was Valentine's Day and Teddy was fourteen. Of course he would have a date. "Well have fun then," Victoire said as he made his way to the portrait hole.

"Maybe I'll catch up with you later," Teddy said.

"Yeah, maybe for dinner or something," Victoire agreed.

"Well, actually, we're supposed to have dinner together," Teddy said.

"Okay, then maybe after dinner," Victoire amended. "Or not. Whatever."

Teddy nodded. "Have fun playing exploding snap," he said.

Victoire smiled and watched him climb out the portrait hole. For some reason, she was suddenly feeling very grumpy. She wasn't jealous – she wasn't. She just didn't like the idea of Teddy going out with some girl. She liked always having him around to play exploding snap and ask advice from when things were tough. Knowing that he was off with someone else made her feel like she was being left behind.

"Found them!" Kara said victoriously, waving the deck of cards in front of Victoire's face. "We thought we'd lost them, but turns out they were under a pair of Brianna's socks the whole time."

"I don't really feel like playing anymore," Victoire muttered, standing up and heading over to one of the tables. She spread her Transfiguration books out to finish the assignment that was due the following day. "Let's just do some homework. Maybe we can play later."

VvVvVvVvVvV

"So did you have fun?" Victoire asked when Teddy returned to the common room later that night. Kara and Brianna were up in the dorm reading that month's _Teen Witch_ , but for some reason, Victoire had felt compelled to wait up for the boy.

"Not really," Teddy shrugged, flopping down with Victoire on the couch she was sitting on. "She was nice enough, but she was kind of boring."

Victoire hated herself for it, but she felt glad to hear it. "I'm sorry," she said, trying to sympathize.

"I didn't really want to go out with her," Teddy admitted. "Billy was going out with her friend and thought it would be fun if we all went on this big double date. But then he and his girl ran off and left us with nothing to talk about."

"That's pretty lame," Victoire said. "Billy shouldn't have done that."

Teddy shrugged. "It's no big deal. It's not like I'm going to go out with her again or anything."

"Good," Victoire said. "You shouldn't. Not if you didn't like her."

"Thanks," Teddy smiled. "So how was exploding snap?"

"Oh, we didn't end up playing," Victoire admitted.

"Why not?" Teddy asked.

"We have this huge Transfiguration assignment due tomorrow and after you left I remembered that I hadn't even started," Victoire lied.

"The assignment my grandmother assigned last week?" Teddy asked skeptically. "The one you were working on _yesterday_?"

"No, a different one," Victoire invented.

"Huh," Teddy puzzled. "I didn't know she'd given you another assignment."

"What are you, my father?" Victoire joked nervously. "You're keeping tabs on my homework assignments now? That's a little weird, you know."

"No, it's just that I have dinner with my grandmother in her quarters once a week and she never mentioned this big assignment," Teddy said.

"If the only topic of conversation you and your grandmother have to talk about is what homework she's been assigning, you've got problems, my friend," Victoire informed him.

Teddy laughed. "Yeah, good point," he said, dropping the topic. "You got any plans tomorrow afternoon?" he asked.

"No, why?" Victoire wondered.

"I want to make up that game of exploding snap I missed out on," Teddy said. "Four o'clock, in the common room. You bring Kara and Brianna, I'll bring Billy. What do you say?"

"You're on," Victoire smiled.

VvVvVvVvVvV

 _Dominique,_

 _Things are good here. I'm doing well in most of my classes. Astronomy is a bit of a struggle, but don't tell papa or he'll owl the Headmistress and ask her to get me a tutor. If it gets serious, I'll just ask Teddy to help me out like when I was failing Charms. Oh, did I ever mention that? Don't tell papa about that either!_

 _I received an interesting letter from Molly the other day. She claims you stole her copy of_ A History of Magic _when you spent the afternoon at her house? Why would you steal a book as boring as that one? Trust me, I've read it and you do not want to read it before they force you to next year for class._

 _Nothing much else is new over here. Brianna still can't stand Raina's pet kneazle, but at least Ricky's not tearing up her clothes anymore. Caitlin's becoming insufferable with all this flying practice she's been doing down at the pitch during free fly time. She's convinced she's going to make the team next year and whenever Claudia Cloude is around in the common room, she's always sucking up to her. It's sickening._

 _I hope you're still well. Maman mentioned that you were feeling a little under the weather yesterday, but hopefully it's just a cold and you'll be back on your feet in no time._

 _Tell Louis I'll write him tomorrow,_

 _Victoire_

VvVvVvVvVvV

 _Victoire,_

 _Don't worry, I won't tell papa about Astronomy or Charms. But if you have to go to summer school, I think he's going to notice._

 _I did not steal Molly's book, I simply borrowed it. Of course – I didn't really ask, so I guess technically it could be called stealing. I'm going to be starting Hogwarts next year and Molly was bragging about how she's already read through all the first year books and I realized how behind I was, so I thought I should get started now unless I want to be the only first year that can't cast a simple unlocking spell. I swear, I'll give the book back the next time we're over there._

 _I did have a cold, but I'm feeling much better now. It only lasted about a day and maman brought me soup in bed. Louis says he has it now, but I think he's just faking because he doesn't want to help me shovel the walkway. If he gets away with this, I'm going to have to do it all alone! I hate not being able to do magic. Maman could just charm the path clear, but she insists that we need to work now in order to later appreciate the gift of being able to do magic._

 _Grandma Weasley's been asking about you. You should send her an owl soon. Maybe send an assignment you did well on or something for her to put up in the kitchen. She keeps talking about how she used to do that with papa and his brothers when they did well on something._

 _Dominique_

VvVvVvVvVvV

 _Dominique,_

 _I'm glad you're feeling better. And don't worry, I'm not going to have to go to summer school. I'd ask for help before things got that bad._

 _Don't listen to anything Molly says. You don't have to read anything before starting at Hogwarts; I didn't and I'm doing fine. Molly's just crazy, probably because Uncle Percy is her father. Give her back her book and try enjoying these last months before you are forced to read boring textbooks all the time._

 _I sent Grandma Weasley my latest Potions essay. I got an O on it and I'm actually quite proud of myself. It was a tough essay. I was one of the only three people to get an O in the whole class. If you have a chance, read it the next time you're at the Burrow. Or actually, don't. It probably won't make much sense since you haven't studied potions yet._

 _Teddy says hi. He's started throwing ripped up pieces of parchment at me and I get the feeling he wants something so I'm going to end this letter here._

 _I miss you,_

 _Victoire_

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Truth or dare?" Brianna asked Victoire one Sunday evening.

"Dare," Victoire decided.

"Okay, see that fifth year sleeping on the couch?" Brianna asked. "I dare you to pull the pillow out from under his head."

"But then he'll wake up!" Victoire protested.

"Not if you do it really well," Brianna said.

Victoire got up and crept towards the sleeping girl. Carefully, she reached over and grasped the corner of the pillow in her hand and yanked up away, causing the girl's head to bang against the armrest, waking her up.

"What's going on?" she cried out, disoriented.

Victoire dropped the pillow and ran back to her giggling friends before she was caught.

"Okay, Kara, truth or dare?" Victoire asked.

"Truth," Kara said.

"What's your favorite subject?" Victoire asked.

"Charms," Kara replied immediately.

"That was a terrible question," Brianna complained. "We already knew that and it wasn't even interesting."

"Fine," Kara said. "You ask me a question then."

"I will," Brianna took the challenge. "Here's one; which teacher do you think is the most attractive?"

"What?" Kara cried. "I can't answer that, it's so wrong!"

"No it's not," Brianna disagreed. "You're allowed to find a Professor attractive. What you're not allowed to do is go out with one."

"Fine," Kara crossed her arms. "I guess if I had to pick, I'd say… Professor Longbottom." She flushed as she said it and avoided making eye contact with either of her friends.

"Oh, gross," Victoire shook her head, trying to forget her friend had said that. "He's friends with my Uncles and he's married to Professor Abbott-Longbottom. I so did not need to hear that."

"Sorry," Kara shrugged. "What else was I supposed to say? Professor Binns? Professor Flitwick?"

"Oh, that's so much worse," Victoire shook her head.

"Alright Victoire, truth or dare?" Brianna asked.

"Oh no," Victoire shook her head. "It's your turn. Truth or dare?"

"Truth," Brianna chose.

"Have you been using my special shampoo for the past few weeks?" Victoire demanded.

"How did you know?" Brianna demanded. "I've been charming it so that it doesn't feel any emptier than it should."

"It ran out this morning," Victoire replied. "And your hair has been much shinier recently."

"I'm sorry, but it's a really good brand," Brianna apologized. "Where do you buy it?"

"I'll have _maman_ send me a copy of the owl-order form to give you," Victoire promised.

"That would be great!" Brianna exclaimed. "Thanks."

The girls played on for a while longer, but eventually, it was time to turn in. Life was good in Gryffindor Tower.


	7. March

Chapter 7: March 2013

"Professor Binns has completely lost his mind," Brianna cried one day as she and her friends were walking down the Grand Staircase from Gryffindor Tower to the Great Hall for dinner. "He's already assigned us that huge term paper, and now he's giving us a research project on top of it? When are we supposed to have the time to do all this work?"

"I know," Victoire agreed. "Plus we have that big potions project coming up too. And I thought first year was tough."

"The spells are getting harder too," Kara agreed, swivelling her head around to see her friends as she continued to walk down the stairs. "I mean, that disarming spell that Harry Potter is so famous for? It's a lot harder than I thought."

Victoire saw it a split second before it happened. She opened her mouth to warn Kara, but there was no time. With a shout of alarm, Kara stepped onto one of the Grand Staircases' many trick stairs, her leg twisting around at an unnatural angle.

"Help!" Kara cried in anguish, clutching at her leg, trying to pull it out herself. "I think I twisted my ankle!"

Brianna and Victoire rushed forward, each grabbing one of Kara's arms and pulling with all their might. They got her out and deposited her on one of the steps higher up.

"Does it still hurt?" Brianna asked in concern.

"Yeah," Kara said, moving the bottom of her robe away to get a good look at her ankle. If it wasn't sprained, something was definitely very wrong with it. "I think I should go to the hospital wing."

"Can you walk?" Victoire asked.

"I don't know," Kara said. "Let me see."

She started to push herself up, leaning the tiniest amount of weight on the injured foot and then cried out in pain, falling back down onto the stairs.

"We'll take that as a no," Brianna muttered.

"How am I supposed to get there?" Kara wondered. "We're on the second floor and the hospital wing is all the way up on the fourth floor."

"We'll have to carry you," Victoire said. "Come on Bri, you take her feet and I'll grab her under her armpits."

Brianna moved into position and Victoire counted to three. They heaved Kara up, but barely managed to get up a stair before dropping her.

"Ow!" Kara exclaimed, bumping her head against the stairs. "Thanks a lot guys."

"Sorry," Brianna apologized. "But you're really heavy."

"Hey!" Kara cried, offended.

"No, it's not that you're overweight," Brianna corrected herself. "It's just that you're heavier than Victoire and I are able to lift."

"So now what are we supposed to do?" Kara wondered.

"We could try levitating you," Victoire suggested.

"Oh, no way!" Kara exclaimed, shaking her head vehemently. "I've seen the two of you levitating your trunks up into the luggage rack on the train. You have terrible aim and you're always banging them into things. I'm not going to float along down the hall bumping my head against the wall every two feet all the way to the hospital wing.

"I don't see what other choice we have," Victoire said. "How else are we supposed to get you there? You can't walk and we can't life you on our own."

"Then find someone who can," Kara insisted. "Hey, there's Teddy! Maybe he can help. TEDDY!"

"Kara?" Teddy asked from a few flights above. "What's up?"

"We need help!" Kara cried. "Get down here."

Teddy hurried down to where the girls were and asked what was going on.

"Kara thinks she twisted her ankle," Victoire explained. "We're trying to get her to the hospital wing, but she's too heavy for me and Brianna to manage on our own and she refuses to be levitated."

"Okay, how can I help?" Teddy asked.

"If Victoire and Brianna both lift me from under my armpits and you take my feet, maybe the three of you will be strong enough to carry me," Kara said.

Victoire and Brianna looked at Teddy doubtfully. He wasn't the strongest guy they knew.

"It's worth a shot," Teddy agreed, moving around to Kara's feet. "Alright, ready? Lift!"

They got as far as the next landing before having to let Kara go. At least this time, they didn't completely drop her.

"That wasn't bad!" Kara said encouragingly. "We'll just go a little at a time until we get there."

"Yeah, this isn't going to work," Brianna said, breathing deeply from the exertion. "It's too far. We need a new plan."

"What if I levitated you?" Teddy suggested.

"No," Kara shook her head. "I don't want to hit my head on the wall every five steps."

"No, I'm really good at keeping things steady," Teddy assured her. "I'll keep a really close eye on you. I promise, you'll be completely fine."

Kara deliberated. "All right," she agreed. "But the minute you bang me into something, you put me down and we come up with a new plan."

"Not going to happen," Teddy assured her.

"I need to hear you promise," Kara said.

"Fine, I promise," Teddy said. "If you bang into the wall or something, I'll put you down and we'll come up with another plan."

"Okay," Kara said, satisfied. "Go ahead."

Teddy pulled his wand from his pocket and pointed it at Kara, casting the spell. Slowly, she rose into the air.

"Alright, everyone quiet, I need to concentrate," Teddy said, slowly maneuvering Kara around and up the next flight of stairs. Victoire and Brianna followed as silently as possible behind him.

"Hey, you're actually pretty good at this," Kara said from her horizontal position. "This feels really weird though, being suspended in the air and all."

"If you talk, there's a higher chance I'll throw you into a suit of armor," Teddy warned. "Let me focus."

Kara closed her mouth tight and the four of them silently made their way to the hospital wing.

"What is this?" Madam Eldridge cried when they entered the hospital, causing Teddy to lose focus on drop Kara on the floor.

"Ow!" she cried. "And you were doing so well."

"At least I got you here," Teddy pointed out.

"Alright, thank you," Kara said sweetly, plastering on a huge smile.

"She says she twisted her ankle," Victoire said to the waiting hospital matron. "She fell through one of the trick stairs in the Grand Staircase."

"Oh those trick stairs," Madam Eldridge grumbled as she levitated Kara into a bed and magically elevated her injured foot. "At least one injury because of them every week. I keep telling the Headmistress to fix them, but every time, she comes back saying that it's out of her hands and the trick stairs are part of the ancient magic of the castle. Nonsense. If she wanted to get rid of them, she could do it."

"Uh, can you just take a look at my foot?" Kara asked, interrupting Madam Eldridge's rant.

"Oh, it's a sprain," Madam Eldridge confirmed. "I'll just give you a potion for that, and you'll have to stay overnight, but you'll be better in time for breakfast tomorrow."

"I have to spend the night?" Kara asked, aghast.

"Oh, it's not that bad," Victoire assured her. "I was in here for like a week last year and I got along just fine."

"Yeah, but you slept most of the time," Kara pointed out.

"And you're here for one night," Victoire countered. "You're just going to sleep."

"What if I have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night?" Kara asked.

"If you have to use the bathroom, just go," Madam Eldridge said. "The beds are charmed to clean it up as it happens."

"Gross!" Kara cried. "Victoire, you lived like this for a week?"

Victoire grimaced. "I was hoping we'd never have to discuss this."

"Ugh!" Kara cried, throwing her pillow over her face. "Just leave me here. I'll be fine. I'll see you at breakfast tomorrow."

"Don't you want us to keep you company until curfew?" Victoire asked.

"No," Kara insisted. "I have to pee and I don't want any of you here for that."

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Poor Kara," Victoire sighed after dinner in the common room. "Maybe we should go and visit."

"She did say she didn't want to see us," Brianna reminded her.

"Yeah, but that's just because she was embarrassed she had to pee," Victoire said. "I'm sure she's done by now."

"I don't know," Brianna said hesitantly. "She might get really mad."

"She's our friend," Victoire reminded Brianna. "We can't just abandon her."

"Alright," Brianna agreed. "Let's go."

They left Gryffindor Tower and descended the three floors to the hospital wing.

"Hey Kara," Victoire said, pushing open the door to the hospital.

"You guys came back!" Kara exclaimed, a huge smile appearing on her face. "Thank God, it was getting _so_ boring in here. The only company I have is Madam Eldridge, who just keeps taking my temperature, and snore fest over there." She pointed to the bed across from her where a sixth year Ravenclaw was fast asleep. "Madam Eldridge gave him a sleeping potion about an hour ago."

"Well we thought you might like some company," Victoire said, pulling up a chair while Brianna did the same on the other side. "Gosh, being on this side of the bed is really different."

"Tell me about it," Kara rolled her eyes. "I think I'd rather be the visitor."

"I think I'd rather not be in the hospital at all," Brianna grimaced. "But of course, I want to be here for you," she added when Kara's face began to fall. "I just meant that it would be better if nobody was sick or injured."

"Have you taken your potion yet?" Victoire wondered.

"Yeah, right after you guys left," Kara confirmed. "Tasted horrible. I spat it out the first time, and then Madam Eldridge had to pour it in and charm my mouth closed until I swallowed it."

"That sounds awful!" Brianna cried.

"It was," Kara agreed. "Don't ever sprain your ankle."

"Well, I think we'll all watch out for that trick stair in the future," Victoire muttered.

"Oh, trust me," Kara said. "I've learned my lesson. From now on, I watch where I'm going on the stairs."

After about half an hour, Madam Eldridge bustled over and shooed Victoire and Brianna away.

"But curfew's not for another twenty minutes," Victoire protested.

"If you leave in twenty minutes, you'll be out after curfew," Madam Eldridge pointed out.

"But Gryffindor Tower is only five minutes away," Brianna said. "We can stay a bit longer."

"No," Madam Eldridge insisted. "My patients need to sleep!"

"What patients?" Victoire frowned. "That guy's been asleep this whole time and the only other person here is Kara."

"Who makes the rules here, me or you?" Madam Eldridge demanded. "You must leave now!"

"I'll meet you in the Great Hall for breakfast!" Kara called out as Madam Eldridge shoved them out the door.

"Well that was rude," Brianna muttered when the doors slammed shut in their faces.

"Tell me about it," Victoire said. "Try living with her for a whole week."

VvVvVvVvVvV

"You look fantastic!" Victoire exclaimed the following morning when she and Brianna arrived in the Great Hall to find Kara, as good as new, buttering some toast.

"Don't mock me," Kara muttered.

"No, we're serious," Brianna said. "You look good."

"I haven't showered, my hair is a mess, I'm not wearing any makeup, and I'm wearing yesterday's clothes," Kara said. "I'm a disaster."

"At least your ankle is healed," Victoire pointed out.

"Do you think I have time to go back to Gryffindor Tower and fix myself up before class?" Kara wondered.

"I don't think so," Victoire said. "We have potions all the way in the dungeons. By the time you got up there, you'd just have to turn around and come back."

"I should have skipped breakfast," Kara mumbled. "I was just so hungry. Dinner in the hospital wing last night was pitiful."

"Yeah, they give pretty small portions up there," Victoire agreed.

"Why didn't you ask Madam Eldridge to excuse you from first period?" Brianna asked.

"I did," Kara grumbled. "She said she couldn't excuse me without a valid medical reason."

"Bummer," Brianna said.

"I know!" Victoire exclaimed. "I have some nosebleed nougat in my bag. Go wait out in the Entrance Hall and when she comes out, take it and your nose will start bleeding all over the place. She's sure to exempt you from class, and then you'll have plenty of time to shower and stuff."

"I'm in," Kara said. "Give me the candy."

Victoire handed over the nougat and Kara hurried out into the Entrance Hall. Moments later, their potions Professor finished her breakfast and started heading out of the Hall. Victoire and Brianna hurried over to the door and arrived just as Kara's nose started bleeding.

"Oh, Kara, are you alright?" Professor Abbott-Longbottom cried in surprise.

"I have a pretty bad nosebleed," Kara said. "I think I should go to the hospital wing."

"We'll take her!" Brianna cried, hurrying over and dragging Victoire with her. Victoire frowned, shooting a questioning look at Brianna. This wasn't part of the plan.

"Oh good," their Professor said. "And don't worry if you're late to class today, or even if you can't make it at all. Just make sure you get that nosebleed under control."

"We will," Brianna assured her, guiding Kara away and up the stairs, in the opposite direction of the dungeons.

As soon as Professor Abbott-Longbottom was out of sight, Kara took the other end of the nougat and the nosebleed stopped immediately.

"What did you do?" Victoire asked Brianna.

"I just got all three of us a free period," Brianna smirked.

"You're a genius!" Kara exclaimed.

The girls hurried upstairs and Kara immediately jumped in the shower while Victoire and Brianna lounged on their beds in the dorm. They avoided the common room, because it was full of upperclassmen with actual free periods and they didn't want to be called out by a prefect or something.

By the time first period was over, the girls were in high spirits and didn't even care that they had to go to History of Magic next to listen to Professor Binns drone on for an hour about things nobody cared about.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Well don't you look all healed!" Teddy exclaimed that night in the common room upon seeing Kara. "Ankle all better?"

"Yeah, thanks again," Kara said. "Even though you did drop me at the end."

"That was not my fault," Teddy defended himself. "Madam Eldridge completely broke my concentration."

"Sure she did," Kara smirked.

"She did!" Teddy insisted. "She really did!"

VvVvVvVvVvV

As the end of March drew near, the second years were presented with a new challenge; picking their electives for the coming year. There were four to choose from; Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Studies. There used to be a fifth option – Divination – but as soon as Headmistress McGonagall acquired the position of Headmistress, she'd gotten rid of the class. Everybody was supposed to choose two courses to take the following year, and Victoire had no idea what to take.

"Take Ancient Runes," Teddy suggested. "It's a great class. I love it."

"It sounds like a lot of work," Victoire replied.

"It is, but it's worth it," Teddy assured her. Victoire wasn't so sure.

Teddy wasn't the only one with opinions though. Grandfather Weasley sent her an owl encouraging her to take Muggle Studies, claiming that it was a fascinating subject and his personal favorite when he took it back in the day. Uncle Harry and Uncle Ron wrote to her encouraging her to take Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid. They said it might not always be the safest class, but she would have a lot of fun. Aunt Hermione in turn, sent her an owl urging her to stay away from Hagrid's class at all costs. Her father of course, recommended Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, those being the electives he took. Dominique suggested she take Muggle Studies, because it sounded like the easiest class of the four.

"What do you guys think?" Victoire finally asked one evening as she stared at the form she had to fill out and hand back to her Head of House no later than April 1st.

"I don't know," Brianna sighed. "I don't want to take something that looks too difficult, but I don't want to take something that looks easy and then discover that it's harder than the rest."

"I think they're all probably going to be difficult in their own way," Kara sighed. "We just have to pick two and be content with our choice."

"What if we change our mind?" Brianna wondered.

"You could probably talk to Headmistress McGonagall if you realized you really don't want to be in one of the classes," Victoire said.

"Yeah, but only until classes start," Kara added. "They won't let you switch into a different class once you've missed too much."

"This is so stressful!" Brianna exclaimed.

"We should just all sign up for two of the classes together, and if they turn out to be hard, at least we'll have each other," Victoire decided.

"Alright, but which two classes do we take?" Kara asked.

"I'm leaning towards Muggle Studies," Brianna declared. "Not to jinx it or anything, but I feel like it's going to be a more relaxed and laid back class than the others."

"I agree," Kara said. "I've seen the Professor around and he seems like a pretty cool guy."

"Alright, that's one class chosen," Victoire said, writing _Muggle Studies_ down on the first line of her signup sheet. "What else?"

"Not Arithmancy," Kara declared. "Numbers are not my thing."

"Alright, so that leaves Care of Magical Creatures or Ancient Runes," Brianna surmised.

"Can we go with Care of Magical Creatures?" Victoire asked. "I feel like taking Ancient Runes would be super stressful, given my father was a Curse Breaker for such a long time. I just know he would constantly be on my case about it."

"Sure!" Kara agreed. "Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures it is."

They wrote the second course on the second line and then put their papers in a stack at the end of the table.

"Decision made," Brianna said gladly. "Now we can stop worrying about it."

"Phew," Victoire said, staring at the papers. "Wait, guys… what if we chose the wrong classes?"

"We didn't," Kara said, her voice sure. "The classes we chose are great."

"But what if – "

"Come on," Kara declared, standing up and passing their forms back. "We need to get this officially over with. We're taking these straight down to Professor Longbottom's office and then we're never going to think about it again."

Agreeing that this was a good idea, the girls trooped down to the greenhouses and knocked on Professor Longbottom's office door.

"Professor?" Victoire asked, pushing the door open a bit. "We wanted to hand in our course selection forms."

"Oh, excellent," Professor Longbottom said, hurrying forward to collect them. "I see you've elected to take your classes together next year," he said, reading over their choices.

"Yes," Kara said. "But we didn't do that on purpose," she lied. "We just all happen to have similar interests."

"It's probably why we're such good friends," Brianna added.

"It's alright girls," Professor Longbottom assured them. "Now run along."

Eager to get away, the girls scurried off, returning to Gryffindor Tower where they started up a game of exploding snap.

"Maybe we should have – "

"Don't say it!" Kara interrupted Brianna. "We made the right choices."

"I was just going to say that maybe we should have swung by the Great Hall and grabbed a snack on our way back up here," Brianna said. "I'm a little hungry."

"Oh," Kara said. "I have a box of cookies in my trunk, should I get them?"

"Definitely," Victoire agreed.

The girls spent the rest of the evening eating Kara's cookies and playing exploding snap, not worrying about their course selections at all. There was nothing to do about it. They would just have to wait until next year and hope they'd made the right decision.


	8. April

Chapter 8: April 2013

"Are you still awake?" Victoire mumbled to her friends as she crawled out of bed and threw her robes back on.

"Yeah, I'm up," Brianna grumbled, rolling over.

"Come on, Kara, we have to get going," Victoire said, throwing one of her shoes at her sleepy friend. "We've already been late twice this month. Professor Brunwell isn't going to be too happy if it happens a third time."

"I'm coming," Kara muttered, pulling herself up, still half asleep.

It had been a long day for the girls. The night before, they'd been up late finishing a Herbology essay that had been due today that they'd kept putting off. Then they'd had to wake up extra early to use the after-hours potions lab for an assignment because they'd waited too long to book it and gottenWho stuck with the early morning slot. Now, they had to stay up late again, this time because it was Thursday and they had Astronomy class at midnight.

"They really ought to leave our first period free tomorrow," Brianna mumbled as the girls trooped down to the common room and through the portrait hole. "Then we could at least sleep in."

Victoire and Kara murmured their agreement. As they headed over to the Astronomy Tower, Victoire realized just how lucky they were to have Gryffindor Tower be up on the seventh floor with the Astronomy Tower. If they had to walk all the way up from the dungeons… well Victoire was pretty sure they would never make it to class on time.

"I see we're all feeling a little sleepy tonight," Professor Brunwell greeted them when they reached the top of the Astronomy Tower and took their seats all around the edges and began to set up their telescopes. "Don't worry, you'll all be wide awake soon enough."

The Astronomy Tower was designed very differently from any other classroom at Hogwarts. The room was circular, with desks and chairs laid out all along the circumference of the room. Professor Brunwell's desk sat in the middle of the room, and it was almost a full circle, save for the section where there was no desk which allowed him to go in and out.

According to Victoire's Aunts and Uncles, the Astronomy Tower used to look entirely different, but it had been refurbished after the Battle of Hogwarts, as had much of the school that had been destroyed during the fight.

"You'll notice that I've laid out your star charts from last week," Professor Brunwell said, gesturing to the desks around the room, which weren't flat like in normal classrooms, but upright like easels. "What I want you to do today is mark on your charts how far the various stars and planets that we've been charting have moved since last week. We're going to continue doing this for a few weeks, so make sure to keep your charts clean."

The students got to work, positioning their telescopes in the appropriate positions and pressing their eyes up to them to take a look at the sky. Astronomy was definitely not one of Victoire's favorite classes, but it was possible that was because she was always so exhausted when they had the class. It was too bad the class had to be held at night, or else more people might be interested enough to continue with it at N.E.W.T. level.

When the hour-long lesson was over, the second years packed up and made way for the third years who had class after them. Victoire was not looking forward to next year, when she would have to stay up even later for a 1AM Astronomy class.

The Gryffindors were almost back to the common room, when suddenly, Mr. Filch jumped out from behind a suit of armor, waving his hands triumphantly.

"I caught you!" he cried. "Students out of bed! Oh, you're all in for it now!"

"We had Astronomy class," Johnathan Cadwallader, one of the boys in their class, told him.

"Yeah," Cameron Philbrick said. "Doesn't the Headmistress give you a schedule for this sort of thing?"

"You're liars!" Mr. Filch exclaimed. "All of you! You're all little troublemakers, sneaking around after house. I'm taking you to see the Headmistress."

"Please," Victoire cried. "We're exhausted and we just want to sleep. Gryffindor Tower is right down the hall; can't we just go?"

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Filch cried. "Well I'm not letting you get away with anything else. Go on, we're going to see the Headmistress."

Groaning, the second years followed Mr. Filch down to the sixth floor to the stone gargoyle which guarded the entrance to the Headmistress' office.

"Tell the Headmistress I have some troublemakers that need punishment," Mr. Filch said to the gargoyle.

Everyone waited, and after a few minutes, the staircase began to move, spiralling upwards.

"Everyone get on," Mr. Filch insisted, waiting until the last of them had climbed onto the moving stairs before jumping on himself. He didn't want any of the stragglers running away while he wasn't looking.

They reached the top and entered the Headmistress' office. Headmistress McGonagall sat behind her desk, looking like she'd just been dragged out of bed, which most likely she had.

"Oh, not again!" she groaned when all of the second year Gryffindor students piled into her office. "Filch we've talked about this! Students are allowed to be out of bed for Astronomy Class!"

"No, these students weren't in any Astronomy Class!" Filch insisted. "They were roaming the halls like a bunch of hoodlums!"

"We were on our way back to Gryffindor Tower," Adrian Carter spoke up. "We just want to go to sleep."

"You may go," the Headmistress dismissed them all. "Mr. Filch, you stay. We need to have a little conversation."

The second years left the Headmistress' office and began making their way back up to the seventh floor.

"Filch has totally and completely lost his mind," Brianna muttered as they bypassed the Grand Staircase and took a hidden stairwell instead that provided a more direct path back to the dormitories.

"Tell me about it," Caitlin agreed. "He should really retire!"

"Yeah," Victoire agreed. "How old is he anyway?"

"He was here when my parents were in school, and that was back before the second wizarding war," Cameron said.

"I'm pretty sure he was here when my grandparents were in school, which was like, back during the first wizarding war," Victoire added.

"How old is he anyway?" Adrian asked.

"He must be in his seventies at least by now," Johnathan said. "Maybe even eighties."

"He couldn't be in his eighties!" Kara cried. "They wouldn't let him work still if he was that old."

"How old is Professor Binns?" Johnathan countered. "He still works here."

"Yeah, I guess," Kara shrugged. "But come on, eighty is pushing it, you have to admit it."

"Fine, then he's in his seventies," Johnathan allowed. "His late seventies, mind. Anyway, he should still be retired."

Everyone agreed. At this point, they had reached Gryffindor Tower and the Fat Lady did not look happy.

"And where did you lot go off to after class?" she wondered.

"Oh never you mind," Adrian said, muttering the password and forcing her to swing open for them.

The second years bid one another goodnight and went straight to bed, knowing that all too soon, their wand alarms would be waking them up for morning classes.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Ugh, I'm exhausted," Victoire groaned when she awoke the next morning. "Can't we just skive off classes today and sleep?"

"Oh come on," Caitlin cried, throwing open the curtains to the window by her bed, causing the sun to shine right on Victoire's bed. "Don't be such a baby. Anyway, it's Friday, so you can sleep in as long as you want tomorrow."

"Ugh," Victoire rolled over and pulled the covers up over her head to block out the sun. Caitlin was so annoying in the morning. She always woke up extra early to get in her morning run around the castle, which meant that by the time Victoire had to wake up, she was already fully awake and bouncing off the walls.

Eventually, Victoire did wake up, and once she and Brianna had physically dragged Kara out of bed, they got ready for classes and slogged down to the Great Hall to eat some breakfast before their first period class, which just happened to be History of Magic. How she was going to stay away for that, Victoire wasn't sure, but she knew if she fell asleep, she might not wake up for the rest of the day.

Just as they were about to leave for class, Headmistress McGonagall stood and addressed the students.

"After careful deliberation and in depth discussion, it has been decided that Mr. Filch will be taking a step back from his duties as Hogwarts caretaker," she announced to roaring applause.

"We were right," Brianna said amidst the cheering. "He's retiring!"

"We have thought long and hard about this," Headmistress McGonagall continued. "Mr. Filch's duties will be restricted to daytime caretaking and hallway supervision, and in the coming days, we will be searching for someone new to take over Mr. Filch's nightly patrolling duties."

"Wait what?" Victoire spluttered, spitting out her pumpkin juice. "So he's not retiring?"

"In the interim," the Headmistress added, "your Professors will be increasing the length of their nightly patrols to cover the void left by Mr. Filch's absence. Therefore, please be on your best behaviour as the staff are likely to have a little less patience for pranks and general hijinks in the days to come. Thank you."

"I guess not," Kara muttered.

"They're seriously letting him stick around?" Victoire repeated, not believing it. "Even after last night?"

"Well they're not letting him patrol at night anymore, so at least there's that," Brianna pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess," Victoire shrugged.

"Hey I wonder who this new person will be," Kara said excitedly.

"Whoever it is, I just hope they aren't as strict as Filch," Brianna said as they made they way up to History of Magic.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Truth or dare?" Kara asked Brianna a few nights later.

"Truth," Brianna said.

"Did you steal my green sweater when you went home for Easter?" Kara demanded.

"Sorry," Brianna apologized sheepishly.

"Well can I at least have it back?" Kara asked.

"I might have left it at home," Brianna admitted. "But I'll totally bring it back with me in September."

Kara rolled her eyes. "You'd better," she warned.

"Victoire, truth or dare?" Brianna asked.

"Truth," Victoire chose.

"If you had to pick one," Brianna said. "Would you rather spend the rest of your life in Professor Binns' class, or be forced to play for the HolyHead Harpies?"

"Professor Binns, hands down," Victoire said. "At least I can sleep in his class."

Brianna laughed.

"Alright Kara, truth or dare?" Victoire asked.

"Truth," Kara said.

"Was it really a house elf that found and washed Caitlin's lucky sock, or did you throw it down the laundry chute?" Victoire demanded.

"Alright fine, I threw it down the laundry chute," Kara admitted. "But it reeked. Something had to be done."

"On behalf of both Victoire and I, and also probably Raina too, I just want to say thank you," Brianna said, placing a hand over her heart dramatically.

"Alright…. Victoire, truth or dare?" Kara asked.

"Dare," Victoire chose, deciding to shake things up a bit.

"I dare you to go down to the Great Hall and get my Charms textbook," Kara declared. "I accidentally forgot it there at dinner."

"You've just been waiting for someone to pick dare all night, haven't you?" Brianna asked.

"Maybe," Kara admitted.

"This isn't a dare, it's a chore!" Victoire cried. "And it's after hours; I can't leave the tower."

"That's what makes it a good dare," Kara smiled. "Don't get caught!"

Glaring unhappily at her friends, Victoire stood up and reluctantly made her way over to the portrait hole, pushing it open and stepping out before a prefect or someone noticed what she was doing.

"Hey! You shouldn't be out at this hour!" The Fat Lady accused her. "Get back inside!"

"I'll be right back," Victoire assured her. "I just have to grab a book for a friend."

Victoire hurried down the Grand Staircase, making sure to miss all the trick stairs. She wouldn't have anyone to help pull her out if she got stuck after all. A couple times, she had to hurry to hide in one of the corridors when she heard prefects doing their patrols, but she managed to make it to the Great Hall without getting caught.

Just like she'd said, Kara's Charms textbook was sitting innocently on the bench of the Gryffindor Table where they'd eaten dinner. Victoire hurried forward, grabbing it, and then turning around to go back up to the common room.

"Did you know curfew was forty-five minutes ago?" a man she'd never seen before asked, standing in the doorway of the Hall. "It looks like someone's been breaking the rules."

"Who are you?" Victoire asked nervously. "How did you get in here?"

"It doesn't matter who I am," the strange man said. "If you were up in your dorms, we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

"My friends know where I am," Victoire warned nervously. "One scream from me and they'll all come running."

"Your friends are back in Gryffindor Tower," the man informed her. "Nobody's coming to save you."

"I don't know what you want from me," Victoire said, her voice shaking now. "But whatever it is, someone'll stop you. There's Professors and prefects patrolling the halls as we speak. I bet someone's scheduled to check on the Great Hall pretty soon too."

"That would be me," the man said.

"Huh?" Victoire asked, confused. She'd thought the man was here to kidnap her or something.

"My name is Mr. Clarke," the man said. "I'm testing out the night patrol job to see if I'd be a good fit."

"Oh," Victoire said, realization and relief flooding through her. "Phew, I thought you were an intruder or something."

"Don't be so relieved," he said. "I'm taking you up to the Headmistress' office."

"What?" Victoire cried in indignation. "What did I do?"

"You're wandering the halls at night, remember?" Mr. Clarke said.

"Oh yeah," Victoire remembered. "But actually Sir, I have a really good explanation for that, so if I could just – "

"I don't want to hear it," Mr. Clarke said. "Go on, march."

Grumbling about getting caught, Victoire climbed back up to the sixth floor with Mr. Clarke and went all the way up to Headmistress' McGonagall's office. It was the second time she was there in less than a week, but unfortunately this time, she was in trouble.

"Ah, Miss Weasley," the Headmistress said when she entered. "You've met Mr. Clarke I see."

"Yeah," Victoire mumbled.

"This one was wandering around the Great Hall after hours," Mr. Clarke said. "She claims to have a good excuse."

The Headmistress looked at Victoire expectantly.

"It was a dare," Victoire admitted.

The Headmistress shook her head. "Victoire I'm very disappointed in you. I'm going to take ten points for being out past curfew, and another ten points for doing a dare when you knew it was against the rules."

Victoire hung her head. "Sorry Headmistress," she said.

"As for you Mr. Clarke," she continued. "If you do choose to stay on, there's no need to march students to my office every time you find them misbehaving. You have the authority to dock points yourself, and it you deem them troublesome enough to warrant a detention, you can simply take them to see their Heads of House."

"Of course, Headmistress," Mr. Clarke said.

"Alright, now make sure Victoire gets back to Gryffindor Tower without any more detours, and then you can continue your patrols," she said. "We'll talk in the morning."

When Victoire got back to the common room, she dropped the book in Kara's lap and threw herself into her armchair in frustration.

"I hope you're happy," she muttered. "That textbook cost Gryffindor twenty points."

"You got caught?" Brianna exclaimed.

"Yeah, by some guy named Mr. Clarke," Victoire confirmed. "He's trying out the night patrol job to see if he likes it."

"How did he seem?" Kara asked.

"We definitely don't want him to stay," Victoire assured her. "For one thing he already hates me, and for another, he's even stricter than Mr. Filch. He wouldn't even let me explain about the dare before he had me up in the Headmistress' office."

"He took you to the Headmistress' office?" Brianna gasped. "What happened."

"She docked twenty points," Victoire shrugged. "But I already told you that."

The next morning at breakfast, the first thing Victoire noticed when she walked into the Great Hall was Mr. Clarke sitting right next to the Headmistress at the staff table.

"That's him," Victoire pointed.

"Do you think this means he's decided to take the job?" Brianna wondered. "Since he's up at the staff table and all?"

"I don't know," Victoire shrugged. "I guess we'll find out."

It was only minutes later that Professor McGonagall stood to address the student body again. "I have an announcement to make before you all leave to go to your classes," she said. "I would like to introduce you all to Mr. Clarke, your new night patrolman. He was an Auror for ten years, but took an early retirement due to an injury to his leg. We're extremely lucky to have him join our team, and I hope you'll all be on your best behaviour and not give him too much trouble."

There was a smattering of applause through the Hall, but mostly, people were just seizing up the new guy.

"Ex-Auror, huh?" Kara commented as they made their way to Transfiguration. "That doesn't sound too good for us."

"It's not," Victoire agreed.

"Ah, Miss Weasley," Mr. Clarke started the girls as they moved into the Entrance Hall. "So nice to see you in the daylight."

"How did you – weren't you just up there with – What?" Victoire spluttered, confused as to how Mr. Clarke had gotten down there so fast.

"Auror training," Mr. Clarke explained. "I used to work with your Uncle."

"Great," Victoire said, hoping he wasn't still in contact with Uncle Harry. She didn't need word of her nighttime wanderings spreading through her family.

"Well I suppose I'll be seeing you around," Mr. Clarke said. "Or rather, I hope I won't be seeing you around."

"Right," Victoire said. "Well I've got to get going," she said, sidestepping away. "Congratulations on the new job."

As she and her friends hurried off to Transfiguration, Victoire could only hope she never had to deal with Mr. Clarke again.

"You were right," Brianna agreed. "He's super creepy."

"Do you think he's doing it on purpose?" Kara asked.

"What do you mean?" Brianna asked.

"You know, trying to freak us out to keep us in line? Make us think he's this crazy scary guy when he's really just a younger version of Filch?"

"I don't know," Brianna shrugged.

"What I do know," Victoire said as they took their seats. "Is that I don't even want to be out after curfew again."


	9. May

Chapter 9: May 2013

On May 2nd, Victoire awoke to a pile of presents at the end of her bed. It was her thirteenth birthday and she was so excited to finally be an official teenager.

"Happy birthday!" her friends greeted her, having made sure to awaken before her. "How do you feel?"

"Extremely mature," Victoire smiled. "I feel like I'm a totally new person."

"Here, open your presents," Kara said, tossing one on the top to Victoire. "This one's from me."

Victoire opened it obediently. It was a beautiful blue nail polish that would look amazing on her.

"Thanks Kara!" Victoire exclaimed.

"Mine next," Brianna said, picking the correct gift and passing it over.

Brianna had gotten her a super cute new bag to carry her books in.

"I love it," Victoire smiled. "Thanks Bri."

Next she continued to open the rest of her presents. Her parents had bought her a makeup kit, complete with mascara and everything. Before she'd only been allowed to wear lip gloss and a little blush – of course, her parents didn't know that she'd been borrowing Kara and Brianna's makeup since first year.

Dominique had gotten her a new pot of ink and a quill, her note claiming that she needed to write more often. Louis had supposedly gotten her a subscription to _Teen Witch_ , but she was pretty sure her parents were paying for that one too.

Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione had got her a book entitled _The Teenage Years_. She supposed it was probably a compromise between Aunt Hermione wanting to get her a book and Uncle Ron wanting to get her something that wasn't educational.

From Uncle George and Aunt Angelina, she received a Weasley's Wizard Wheezes care package. It wasn't much of a surprise – Uncle George always gifted them with products from his store, because he got them for free.

Uncle Percy and Aunt Audrey actually had bought her an educational book. It was a history book called _European Wizardry: from 457 to 1343_. Victoire put that one straight in the bottom of her trunk. Maybe she would read it over the summer if she got really bored.

Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny's gift was a really nice bracelet. She could tell Aunt Ginny had picked it out and she thanked Merlin Uncle Harry hadn't tried to contribute. Her Uncle Charlie had bought her a pair of socks with dragons all over them and she laughed over her poor Uncle's inability to shop for girls.

From her Aunt Gabrielle, she got a beautiful blue sweater that she could tell without trying on would look amazing on her. Aunt Gabrielle was amazing at finding the perfect clothes. From _Grandmaman Delacour_ , she got a pair of earrings in the shapes of little butterflies whose wings fluttered back and forth magically.

There was also a whole tin of Grandma Weasley's homemade fudge and a card signed by the whole Weasley family.

"Wow," Brianna noted when Victoire was finished. "You have a lot of relatives."

"Yeah," Victoire agreed. "And this is only with one present from each household."

Though it was Victoire's birthday, it was also the anniversary of another event – the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. Normally, there was a short commemoration ceremony in the Great Hall that took the place of first period, and then the day would carry on as usual, but this year it was the fifteenth anniversary, and so a more elaborate ceremony had been prepared. Classes had been cancelled for the entire day and family and friends of those who had died in the battle were invited to visit the school and honor the fallen. The _Prophet_ would even be here to report on the sad day.

If Victoire was being honest with herself, she hated that she'd been born on May 2nd. It was selfish, and she knew it, but she hated that her birthday was never a happy occasion. Her Uncle Fred had died in the battle, and every year her family spent the day grieving her uncle instead of celebrating her birthday and eating cake. At her eighth birthday, everyone had gathered at the Burrow for a family dinner and her Uncle George had locked himself in his old room for the entire evening while Grandma Weasley spent most of the night crying over the broken off hand of some clock.

Since she couldn't just stay holed up in the dorm all day, Victoire got dressed, putting on her new sweater from Aunt Gabrielle, and making sure to wear the bracelet from Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny. She thought about wearing the socks that her Uncle Charlie had sent her, but in the end decided to just leave them in her trunk – it's not like Uncle Charlie would know the difference. Then she put on her brand-new makeup and joined her friends in the common room.

"You look awesome," Kara said when she emerged.

"Really?" Victoire asked, looking down. She knew she looked awesome, but it was still nice to hear.

"Definitely," Brianna confirmed.

"You want to go get some breakfast?" Kara asked.

"I guess so," Victoire agreed, following her friends out of the tower and down the Grand Staircase.

When they got to the Great Hall, they began to eat their breakfast and then Headmistress McGonagall stood up to address everyone.

"Today is a very sad day for many of us," she began. "Fifteen years ago, though we won the war, many good, brave, young souls were lost fighting for the freedom that you all now enjoy. I know there are some of you who would rather be celebrating the victory that was won on this day. I know many of you can't understand what happened here and some of you might even rather be in class."

"Who would opt for _more_ class?" Brianna whispered under her breath.

"Today, there are going to be a lot of people here," the Headmistress continued. "There are going to be a lot of strangers around, and they are going to be wandering the halls. We are of course, doing security checks at the gates, so you don't have to worry about anybody trying to sneak any dark magic into the school. However, I want to ask that you all be respectful to our guests today. There are probably going to be a lot of people who are still grieving. It may have been fifteen years, but for some the battle can feel like it happened only yesterday. I want to see you all on your best behaviour."

VvVvVvVvVvV

A little while later, Victoire found herself ditching her friends to take a walk through the castle. Like Headmistress McGonagall had said, the castle was filled with a lot of people Victoire didn't know, and many of them were crying. One lady even stopped her and told her she looked just like her daughter had before she'd gotten caught up in an explosion.

Victoire's friends were trying to make the day fun for her, but it wasn't really working. It just wasn't a fun day. She couldn't celebrate knowing that so many people were mourning. It just didn't feel right. But at the same time, Victoire wanted to celebrate. It was all so frustrating that she just needed to be on her own.

She was wandering around somewhere on the seventh floor on the other side of the castle, where she rarely went, when suddenly, she came across her Uncle George sitting against the wall and staring straight ahead, his face completely emotionless.

"Uncle George?" she asked, taking a step closer. When he didn't respond, she asked again, a little louder. "Uncle George?"

"Hi Victoire," her Uncle said, his voice strange. "Oh, happy birthday by the way."

"Thanks," Victoire said, coming a little closer. What was he doing up here anyway? She knew his brother had died in the battle but… "Uncle George, is this where…?"

Victoire, I'd really like to be alone right now if you don't mind," he said.

"I'm sorry," Victoire apologized, backing away.

What was wrong with her? Obviously her Uncle knew she went to school here. If he'd wanted to talk to her, he could have come and find her. If he was sitting alone in some corridor nobody ever used, then obviously he was trying to find some peace and quiet.

As she continued walking back in the direction she'd come, she glanced out the window and noticed Teddy sitting alone down by the lake. She knew this day was usually pretty hard for him, and she wondered if he'd like some company. It wasn't like he was hiding in an abandoned corridor. Anyone could see him sitting out in the open like he was. Victoire decided to go ahead and she began to make her way back to the Grand Staircase.

"Hey," she said softly as she approached the lake.

"Oh, hey Vic," Teddy greeted her with a half smile.

Victoire took that as an invitation and she sat down in the grass next to her friend.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, I guess so," Teddy shrugged, staring out across the lake again. "I guess I'm just… confused? I don't know if that's the right word for what I'm feeling actually, but it's the best I have."

"What's… confusing?" Victoire asked.

"It's just… all these people," Teddy said, gesturing around to the general area. "They're all here mourning the people they lost. I can't do that."

"Sure you can," Victoire said.

"I can't," Teddy disagreed. "I can be sad, but I can't really mourn. I never knew them. I don't know what it is that I lost, just that I lost something."

"That doesn't mean you don't have as much right to this day as they do," Victoire said.

"I know," Teddy said. "But these people have real pain. I saw one lady crying so hard she just crumpled to a ball in the middle of the stairway and couldn't keep going. I don't have that."

"You want to be stuck in the stairwell?" Victoire questioned, trying to lighten the mood a bit. She panicked for a moment when Teddy didn't react right away that she'd said something wrong, but then she saw the hint of a smile and knew she'd said exactly the right thing.

"No, but I think I just wish I felt something besides this… emptiness," Teddy said. "It's like there's a hole where they should be, but I don't know what goes there. These people didn't used to have holes. They were whole and healthy and happy, and then the hole came. My hole's always been there."

"I think the important thing to remember is that we all have holes," Victoire said. "Some people have bigger holes, some people have a lot of little holes, and some people's holes have been there longer than other people's holes. Maybe some holes used to be full and other people's holes eventually do get filled while other holes are holes forever. But a hole is a hole, and pain is pain. You don't have to compare yourself to anybody else. Your pain doesn't have to look like someone else's pain for it to be pain."

A single tear rolled down Teddy's cheek and he wiped it away quickly, not wanting Victoire to see him cry.

"You know, you're pretty wise yourself," he said, forcing a smile.

"You don't have to be all strong and put together just for me," Victoire said, taking his hand. "If you need to cry or whatever you can."

Teddy nodded and then turned so he was staring out at the lake again. Victoire did the same, figuring he would be more comfortable if she wasn't staring at him. After a few moments, she could feel him shaking next to her and she snuck a glance at him to see that he was in fact crying.

They sat there for a while, until Teddy was all cried out. Luckily, Victoire had some tissues in her pocket, which she produced and handed to Teddy.

"Thanks," he said, wiping his tears and blowing his nose. "Will you judge me if I throw these in the lake?" he asked.

Victoire shook her head and Teddy launched them forward so that they landed on the surface of the water not too far away and slowly began to sink.

"You're a really good friend," Teddy said then.

"So are you," Victoire returned.

"Oh! I almost forgot!" Teddy exclaimed suddenly, reaching around into his bag and producing a small wrapped package. "Happy Birthday!"

"Oh, you didn't have to get me anything," Victoire protested. "I know today isn't really a celebration-y kind of day. I'm thinking of switching my birthday to like, May 5th or 6th to avoid all the confusion actually."

"Don't do that," Teddy said. "This is your birthday. It's not something you just change because you don't like where it falls. I doubt Louis likes his birthday all that much, being so close to Christmas, but you don't see him changing it."

"It's not really the same th – "

"Just open the present," Teddy said, shoving the package into her hands.

Trying not to seem to eager, Victoire slowly pulled the tape off and slowly removed it from the packaging.

"An exploding snap deck!" Victoire exclaimed. "Thank you." She leaned over and pulled Teddy in for a quick hug. "It's great!"

"Is it?" Teddy asked. "I wasn't sure about it. I know Kara has one, and you usually use hers, but I thought you might like to have your own deck so you could play whenever you want."

"No, it's awesome," Victoire assured him. "I love it. Now I can play with Dominique and Louis when I'm home for summer. Or I could bring it along to family dinners and give the cousins something more interesting to do than yell at each other for looking at each other funny."

"Well I'm glad you like it," Teddy smiled.

VvVvVvVvVvV

Soon, it was closing in on the end of May. Exams were fast approaching and tensions were running high. Victoire was starting to panic. She'd done alright last year, but this year she'd struggled with a few of her classes. Would she do as well in them this year, or was she doomed to fail and get stuck in summer school with a bunch of other losers?

"Victoire, calm down, it's going to be fine. It's just second-year exams, they're not that important," Teddy told her one evening. "I'm the one who has to worry. They won't let me into my O.W.L. year if I can't pass my fourth-year exams."

"Oh don't be so dramatic," Victoire said. "First of all, fourth years have just as much right to retake a class in summer school as the rest of us, so don't act like it's a bigger deal than it is. And second, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You've never even failed a simple assignment, so why on earth would you think you're going to fail your exams?"

"Okay, maybe you're right," Teddy allowed. "But if I'm not allowed to worry, then neither are you. We're both going to do fine and that's all there is to it."

If only Teddy's words had been enough to convince Victoire that this was the case. She was so terrified of doing poorly on her Charms exam that she even went to see Professor Flitwick to ask if there was any extra credit work she could do to boost her overall mark going into the exam. There wasn't.

"I can't fail!" Victoire insisted to her friends. " _Maman_ and _papa_ would be so disappointed in me. Grandma Weasley would take my potions essay down. Uncle Percy would never talk to me again – "

"Okay, none of that is going to happen," Kara assured her. "You just have to take a few deep breaths and keep revising and everything will be alright."

VvVvVvVvVvV

"WHO STOLE MY LUCKY QUILL?" Raina roared a couple days later as she tore through her things.

"You have a lucky quill?" Kara asked with a frown.

"Oh, don't act so innocent with me," Raina said, throwing a shoe in Kara's direction. "I know one of you three stole it. You want me to fail, don't you? Well it's not going to happen. I'm going to find my quill."

She ran over and threw open Kara's trunk, rifling through it frantically.

"Hey!" Kara cried. "Cut it out, that's my stuff!"

"You stole my quill and I want it back!" Raina cried.

"I never stole your dumb quill," Kara said. "I didn't even know you had a special quill – "

"LUCKY quill," Raina corrected.

"Fine, _lucky_ quill," Kara muttered. "And besides, I don't want you to fail."

"Oh, but don't you?" Raina demanded. "I've heard you guys whispering in the bathroom when you don't think I'm there. You're all worried you're the ones that are going to fail, so now you've made sure that it's me and not you."

"You know that's not how it works, right?" Kara asked nervously. "They'd don't like, fail a predetermined number of people or anything."

"Oh, that's just what they want you to think," Raina cried manically. "But really, they do. It's this whole big conspiracy to make sure people go to summer school. How else are they going to ensure job security for summer school teachers?"

"You sound like you've been reading _The Quibbler_ or something," Kara said.

"So what if I have?" Raina cried. "Just because it came from a less reputable source than say, the _Daily Prophet_ , it doesn't mean it's not true.

Kara sighed. "I don't even know what to say to you."

"JUST GIVE ME MY QUILL!" Raina screeched.

VvVvVvVvVvV

 _Dominique,_

 _Remember my roommate Raina? She's completely lost her mind. I'm thinking of asking Madam Eldridge to give her a sedation potion or something soon, because she's spent the last two days ransacking the dorm looking for some lucky quill that she thinks one of us stole. I'm not even sure she actually has a lucky quill. We've never seen it before, and she's never mentioned it until now._

 _Other than that things are good. Exams are coming though, so we are all a little stressed out about that. It'll be fine though. Soon they'll be over, and we won't have to think about school until September. Of course, we do still have to write the exams. And second-year exams are a lot harder than first-year exams. At least that's what I've heard. You know what? I should really be revising right now._

 _Victoire_

VvVvVvVvVvV

Knowing that everyone was extremely on edge, the Professors started introducing meditation at the beginning of their lessons to try to calm everyone down and focus. This only made Victoire more nervous, because it gave her time to think about the amount of information she had yet to learn. She felt like her brain was going to explode from all the knowledge she was trying to cram into it.

"Kara, can I borrow your Herbology notes?" Brianna asked one night in the library.

"Borrow Victoire's hers make more sense," Kara said.

"Victoire – "

"Here," Victoire handed over her notes. "Does anybody remember the twelve uses of dragon's blood?"

"That's first year material," Kara said. "Why are you studying that?"

"Because I feel like we talked about one of them in Herbology this year, but I can't remember," Victoire said, banging her fist against her head.

"Here it is," Brianna said, pointing to the place it was written in Victoire's notes. "If you add it to dragon dung fertilizer, it makes it ten times more effective."

"That's right!" Victoire cried. "Thank you!"

"Which conference was held in 1408?" Kara asked. "Was it the International Warlock Convention or the Medieval Assembly of European Wizards?"

"The second one," Victoire replied. "Warlocks were in 1289. I wrote my first term paper on that."

"Thanks," Kara muttered, scribbling it down.

"We're going to be fine, right?" Brianna asked nervously, looking up from Victoire's notes.

"We're going to be fine," Kara assured her.


	10. June

Chapter 10: June 2013

Monday morning of their first week of exams, everyone was nervous. The Great Hall was unnaturally silent and very little food was eaten. All too soon, it was time for the second years to start the long trek down to the dungeons. This year was even more stressful than the previous year, because some of their exams had practical components. For their potions exam, they were going to be asked to brew one of the potions they'd studied that year. Victoire had stayed up all night going over the recipes for the various potions, but even as she descended the staircase to the dungeons, she could feel steps falling out of her head.

When all the second years had arrived and gotten themselves situated, Professor Abbott-Longbottom distributed their test papers. They were all assigned different potions at random and weren't allowed to talk to each other, so they couldn't copy off their friends, because they didn't know who was brewing what. Victoire glanced down at her paper and breathed a sigh of relief when she discovered that she only had to brew a simple sleeping draught. If she'd had to brew a hair-raising potion, she knew she'd have messed it up.

As soon as the test began, Victoire hurried to the store cupboard to stock up on the ingredients she would be needing. She grabbed the wormwood and the valerian right away. Then she reached up for some nettles and asphodel petals, transferring everything into her left hand as she reached into the final jar and pulled out a single Flobberworm.

"Gross," she muttered as she hurried back to her table and deposited everything. When they'd brewed this in class, she's made her partner deal with the Flobberworm. Unfortunately, she didn't have much of a choice about it now.

She checked the clock and saw that time was running out. She knew that her potion needed to simmer for about seventy minutes midway through, so she knew she had to get going. They only had an hour and a half period to complete the practical exam and she couldn't afford to hand in an unfinished potion.

She started by filling her cauldron with eight cups of tepid water and then tossed in two teaspoons of standard ingredient. She lit a small fire under her cauldron with her wand and stirred the standard ingredient into the water. While that heated up, she threw the wormwood into her mortar and started grinding it down to a powder with her pestle. Once it was ready, she inserted her thermometer into the water and checked the heat. It wasn't quite warm enough yet, so she waited another minute until it was at the perfect temperature and then added the wormwood, stirring in a clockwise direction as she poured it in.

Leaving that to simmer, she turned back to her desk and forced herself to remember what came next. It was either the valerian or the Flobberworm, but she was pretty sure the valerian came first, so she grabbed a knife and began to chop it up. She threw it in and then grabbed her wand to increase the intensity of the fire. She stirred a couple of times and then reluctantly reached for her Flobberworm.

It was squishy and slimy and extremely uncomfortable to handle. She really didn't want to do what she knew she had to do, so she looked away as she dropped it into her mortar and started grinding it down with the pestle. When it was nothing more than a mucus-like paste, she used her spatula to scrape the sides of her mortar and she poured the Flobberworm into the cauldron.

Once it was in, she grabbed her stirring rod and started to stir vigorously. To her relief, the potion started to turn purple – exactly the color she was hoping for. She knew she had to keep stirring until it because pink, but that if she stirred too long and it turned red, it would be ruined. She kept a close eye on it and as soon as it started turning pink, she grabbed her wand and lowered the heat of the fire. She gave the potion one more stir and then pulled the stirring rod out to let the potion sit.

"Shoot!" she muttered to herself, realizing she'd forgotten the ingredient she would need for the next step. Hoping her potion wouldn't do anything questionable while she was gone, Victoire hurried back to the storeroom to grab a sopophorus bean. She brought it straight back to her desk and picked up her knife, ready to chop it. She remembered from the last time she'd tried this that the sopophorus bean was extremely difficult to cut into and likely to fly away if she didn't hold onto it, so she anchored it to the table with one hand and using all the force she had, pressed down with the knife in the other.

It was slow, but eventually, she had the whole bean chopped up and she added the pieces to the cauldron. Then she increased the heat so that the bits of bean would melt into the rest of the potion and stirred. Here came the long part.

Victoire pulled up a chair and got comfortable. The potion was on a high heat, which meant she had to keep an eye on it, but it also had to sit there for seventy minutes. She waited for it to start boiling, and then turned the heat down just a little, but keeping it still high enough that the solid particles would mix in.

This would be the perfect opportunity to revise for other classes, Victoire thought. Unfortunately, they weren't allowed to bring any notes into the exam, in case they tried to cheat. Instead, Victoire glanced around the room, curious to see what everyone else was doing.

At the next bench over, Kara was adding lethe river water to her potion. It looked like she was brewing a forgetfulness potion and Victoire blanched. She hadn't known potions from last year were testable material too! It was a good thing she'd gotten one she'd studied, because Kara looked completely lost, unsure which direction to stir.

At the table in front of her, Brianna was grinding up some lavender. It looked like she might have gotten stuck with the hair-raising potion, but Victoire couldn't be sure.

She looked around the rest of the room, wondering who else had gotten the Sleeping Draught. Sara Pucey was just sitting and watching her cauldron with a bored expression, so Victoire surmised that she was probably brewing the same thing as Victoire. Looking around the other side of the room, she noticed William Shimpling struggling with his sopophorus bean and figured he was brewing a Sleeping Draught as well. She couldn't look behind herself without it looking like she was trying to cheat, so after checking out all the classmates she could see, Victoire returned her attention to her cauldron.

The potion was starting to turn a lovely green color. Victoire tried to remember if that's what she wanted, but couldn't remember. She wanted to stir the potion, but she knew that she might mess it up if she did, so she resisted the urge, just waiting and hoping it would turn out all right. When the seventy minutes were up, she began to sprinkle some asphodel into it. When it started turning yellow, she stopped and threw in the tablespoon of dried nettles, heating the potion just a tad until it started to boil again.

She stirred slowly as the potion was drained of all color and once it was clear, she removed it from the heat and dipped her ladle in, pouring it into the vial she'd been given. She labelled the vial with her name and the name of the potion she was trying to make and brought it up to the front.

"Thank you Victoire," Professor Abbott-Longbottom said, taking her vial and putting it with the rest of them. "As soon as you've cleaned up, you can go."

Victoire hurried back to her station and started cleaning out her cauldron. She wished they had learned the cleaning spells in Charms so that they wouldn't have to clean this way, but cleaning spells were more advanced than second years were ready for and Victoire wasn't all that good with Charms anyway.

Once her cauldron was clean, she did a quick rinse of her knife, mortar, and pestle, and then she wiped her station clean with a rag, tossing it into the sink at the side of the room. Satisfied, Victoire grabbed her bag from the back of the room and left, sitting down outside the classroom with her Transfiguration notes while she waited for Kara and Brianna.

"That was awful!" Kara exclaimed, emerging moments later and sitting down next to Victoire. "I didn't know she was going to ask us to brew things from first year. It's been months since I've reviewed the recipe for forgetfulness potion!"

"I'm sure you did fine," Victoire assured her.

"I'm not!" Kara cried. "My potion was green. _Green_. That's a far cry from the deep purple I was shooting for."

"Maybe it's not as bad as you think," Victoire said. "You probably only missed one step somewhere. You'll still get a decent grade."

"I hope so," Kara said. "What'd you get?"

"Sleeping Draught," Victoire replied.

"Oh, I'm jealous!" Kara cried. "I could brew a Sleeping Draught in my sleep. Did you get the right color?"

"Yeah," Victoire said. "But I might have let it simmer for a little too long when I had to go back to get a sopophorus bean. I forgot about it when I was in the storeroom the first time."

"Oh yeah, I noticed you ran back there," Kara said. "Well I'm sure it's not a big deal. It probably didn't affect the potion at all."

"I hope not," Victoire said. "But it's over now, and there's nothing I can do about it."

Brianna joined them ten minutes later and they all hurried to the library to keep on studying. Victoire had been right. Brianna had been required to brew a hair-raising potion. She seemed confident enough about it, but Victoire wondered it if was because she didn't want to worry herself about the things she might've done wrong.

Tuesday morning was no different than Monday morning. The Great Hall was quiet as everyone revised for the day's exams. On the bright side, the second-year Transfiguration exam was written, not practical, which Victoire found significantly less stressful.

It went alright. There were twenty-three questions and only four had Victoire questioning herself, so she knew she couldn't have done too badly. Brianna seemed extremely proud of herself when they emerged from Professor Tonks' classroom for lunch and another afternoon of revision and Victoire had to keep reminding herself that she couldn't let other people's successes or failures affect her concentration.

Wednesday was the worst day for Victoire. It was the day of their Charms exam, and Professor Flitwick was going to be testing their practical skills individually. After breakfast, the second years gathered in the hall and one by one, Professor Flitwick called them in for their exams.

It was even more stressful waiting for her turn than it was to actually do an exam, Victoire thought. Professor Flitwick was going alphabetically, which meant that she would be one of the last people called. When Kara's turn came, Victoire and Brianna wished her luck, even though they both knew she didn't need it. Kara was a natural at Charms. She would pass with flying colors.

Brianna's turn came immediately after Kara's, which left Victoire on her own, worrying about how she was going to do. Nobody was returning after their exams were done, suggesting that Professor Flitwick was sending them out by another route to keep them from divulging details of the exam to their friends.

When Victoire's turn finally came, she got up shakily and walked into the classroom. Professor Flitwick sat down at his desk at the front of the room, indicating that Victoire should sit in the chair opposite him.

"This is going to be a very straightforward exam," Professor Flitwick said. "So don't worry about a thing. Now, first thing, can you please levitate that chair over there." He pointed to a nearby chair that was lying on it's side, probably from being dropped by the last student. Victoire had suspected, after what happened in potions, that she might be tested on first year material in her other classes, so she'd practiced her first year charms the night before.

She pointed her wand at the chair and cast the spell flawlessly, causing the chair to float up into the air.

"Excellent," Professor Flitwick said. "Now if you could just put it back down standing up straight please."

This was easier said than done. Levitating was easy, but the difficult part was controlling the orientation of the levitated object. Victoire tried her best, and almost managed to sit the chair down nicely, but she lost control at the end and the chair ended up on it's side.

"Alright," Professor Flitwick muttered, making a note on the test paper. "Now if you could please light a fire in that fireplace." He pointed to the fireplace in question – which Victoire was pretty sure hadn't existed the last time she'd been in the room. Luckily, Victoire was quite good at making fires, always having to make them in potions class, and she had no trouble doing it now.

"Lovely," her Professor said. "Now if you could please enlarge this inkwell to twice it's normal size?"

Victoire took a deep breath and focused. She could do this. Teddy had helped her with the engorgement charm and she'd practiced it many times. She just had to remember to keep her wand movement fluid.

" _Engorgio_ ," Victoire said. When nothing happened, her heart sank.

"Give it another try," Professor Flitwick suggested.

Victoire tried again and still nothing happened.

"I swear, I can do this spell," Victoire insisted.

"Perhaps we should move on – "

"No, I can do this!" Victoire cried. She cast the spell one more time and finally, she succeeded in making the inkwell grow.

"Excellent," Professor Flitwick said, making a note. Victoire was pretty sure she'd lost points for the number of attempts it had taken her, but at least she'd managed to cast the spell in the end.

Professor Flitwick had her do another three spells before announcing that the exam was over.

"Did I do alright?" Victoire asked nervously.

"You did fine, my dear," Professor Flitwick assured her. "Now go on, out the back door."

He pointed to a door that Victoire had never seen before. She walked through it and suddenly found herself on the sixth floor, completely across the castle.

"He really didn't want us going back to tell anyone about the exam," she muttered to herself, finding her bearings so that she could return to Gryffindor Tower to study for her Astronomy Exam the following evening.

Because the Astronomy exam was at night, the second years had the whole of Thursday to study. That evening, they simply had to map the stars in the sky and label them correctly. It seemed simple enough, but Victoire was worried she may have mixed up a couple of the planets.

On Friday, the second years had a break from exams because they'd had to stay up late the night before, which meant they had a long weekend to prepare for the following week's exams. There were only three exams remaining; Defence, Herbology, and History of Magic.

"I can't wait until Wednesday night," Brianna sighed as they poured over their History notes. "Exams will be over and done with, and we can just relax."

"Yeah, but first we have to make it through these last three," Victoire grumbled.

Monday was their History of Magic exam, which was a three-hour long period where they had to sit and write three mini-essays on the topics they'd covered that year. Luckily for Victoire, one of the questions was about the International Warlock Convention of 1289, a topic she knew a great deal about. She didn't feel too confident about the other two essays though, and hoped that the one she did have a lot to say about would boost her grade.

On Tuesday, they had their Defence exams. Similar to their Charms exams the week before, they were each called into the classroom one by one to do their exams. Once again, their Professor called them alphabetically, which meant that Victoire had to wait until the end.

"He's making us all duel him one on one!" Nathan Abram said when he emerged from the exam twenty minutes later. "It was awful."

This only made everyone panic even more. When Victoire's turn came, she was a complete puddle of nerves.

"Leave your bag by the door," Professor Leftbridge instructed when she entered. "You'll just need your wand."

Victoire did as instructed and moved to the center of the room, which had been cleared of all desks, to face off with her Professor.

"I'm sure you've heard by now," Professor Leftbridge said. "We're going to duel either for fifteen minutes, or until one of us gives up. If you're able to beat me, you get an automatic O."

"How would I beat you?" Victoire asked. "Obviously we're not dueling to kill here."

"Since this is a second-year exam and I'm not expecting you to know any spells we haven't learned in class, a win for you would be capturing my wand," Professor Leftbridge told her. "As for me, I will only be using spells that we've covered in class so that the duel will be perfectly fair. Are you ready?"

Victoire took a deep breath and nodded. Her Professor began by sending a Knockback Jinx in Victoire's direction. She managed to dodge it and returned with a Tickling Charm that Professor Leftbridge dodged with style.

Her Professor continued sending spells her way and panicking that she wouldn't be able to dodge them all, Victoire threw up a Protection Spell. She couldn't attack from behind it though, so she prepared herself to cast a disarming spell and lowered her protection between attacks from her Professor.

The Disarming spell missed, hitting the window behind her Professor and shattering it. In her distraction, Victoire didn't notice Professor Leftbridge send a Disarming spell her way, and suddenly her wand was jumping out of her hand and sailing through the air to be caught by her Professor.

"Did I just fail?" Victoire asked nervously.

"Not at all," Professor Leftbridge assured her, tossing her wand back. "You actually held your own very well until you got distracted by the broken window."

"So I passed?" Victoire asked.

"Don't worry Victoire, you did fine," her Professor assured her. "Can you please send in Lia Weston on your way out?"

The next day was the day of their final exam; Herbology. It was a written exam, thankfully. Victoire actually felt quite confident about this last exam, and even took some time off studying that night to touch up her fingernails.

"How are you not freaking out?" Brianna demanded as she and Kara poured over their notes.

"Herbology's just not that hard for me," Victoire shrugged.

"Oh, stop bragging," Kara muttered. "Just because you got an O in it last year doesn't mean you're a genius."

The exam turned out to be even easier than Victoire had expected. When they walked out of their final exam, she felt extremely good about it.

The next week was utter torture. Everyone was waiting for their exam results and the anticipation was killing them. Victoire was still convinced she was going to fail Charms for not being able to enlarge the inkwell on her first few tries, and Kara was convinced she'd failed potions because she'd forgotten to add the lavender to her forgetfulness potion.

Finally, their exam results were ready to be viewed. As soon as the announcement went out, the girls hurried down to Professor Longbottom's office to receive their reports. Victoire was extremely happy to find that she'd maintained her Outstanding's in Herbology and Potions. Her Charms grade had gone down to an A, but she was just happy she'd passed. Her Astronomy grade had also gone from an E to an A, but her Defence mark actually increased to an E. Victoire was a little surprised by that one. Transfiguration and History of Magic remained A's. All in all, Victoire was quite satisfied with her report.

When the day of the final Quidditch match of the season came around, Victoire and her friends elected to remain in Gryffindor Tower instead of forcing themselves to sit through the boring game. It was nice, because they basically had the whole common room to themselves.

"So what are you guys going to do this summer?" Kara asked, dealing the card for exploding snap.

"Nothing much," Brianna shrugged.

"My sister's going to be all over me about how she gets to come to Hogwarts next year," Victoire rolled her eyes. "She'll want to know everything. I'm not going to get a second of peace."

"What about you?" Brianna asked Kara. "Are you doing anything special?"

"My parents were thinking of taking me on a trip to Italy in August," Kara said. "It's not for sure or anything, but I'm pretty excited."

"That's so cool!" Victoire cried. "If you go, you have to tell us all about it! I've always wanted to go to Italy. My Aunt Gabrielle has been and she says it's just spectacular."

"I'll write you guys every night," Kara assured them.

It turned out that Gryffindor had won the Quidditch Cup that year. The girls discovered this when suddenly, hoards of Gryffindors started pouring into the common room, bearing the team players on their shoulders. In moments, there was music playing and food seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

"Do you guys want to go upstairs?" Victoire suggested when it started to get so loud they could barely hear each other.

Kara and Brianna nodded and they hurried up to the dorms, shutting the door firmly behind them.

"This school gets way too worked up about Quidditch," Victoire muttered.

"I am going to pretend I did not just hear that," Caitlin said, surprising them.

"Caitlin, why aren't you down at the party?" Brianna asked.

"I was just changing my clothes," Caitlin said. "If I'm going to make a good impression on Claudia Coude, then tonight's the night."

She hurried back downstairs to the party and Brianna rolled her eyes.

"I'll never understand that girl," she said.

VvVvVvVvVvV

"Well, this is it," Kara sighed the following morning as the girls dragged their trunks out of the dorm. The Hogwarts Express was leaving at nine and they wouldn't be back for two months.

"It was a fun year," Brianna said.

"You know," Victoire said. "I think I'm going to miss this room."

After a quick breakfast, the girls found themselves boarding the train, and soon they were speeding down the tracks, on their way back to London. Before they knew it, they were pulling into King's Cross and the conductor was announcing that they all had to get off.

"Well… bye," Victoire said, giving each of her friends big hugs.

"See you in September," Kara said.

"Don't have too much fun in Italy without us," Brianna told her.

Victoire rolled her suitcase down the corridor and lugged it off the train, wheeling it down the platform until she found her family.

" _Maman! Papa! Dominique! Louis!"_ she cried, hugging each of her family members. "I've missed you all terribly."

"We've missed you too _chèrie_ ," her mother said.

" _Papa_ let me paint my room purple," Dominique announced proudly. "It's so pretty, I can't wait for you to see it."

"Should we get some ice cream?" _papa_ suggested.

"Yes!" Louis shouted loudly.

Victoire chuckled. "Ice cream sounds great," she said, loving their new family tradition.

As they passed through the barrier back into the Muggle world, Victoire turned back and took one last look at the Hogwarts Express. _I'll be back soon_ , she thought. _Third year, here I come_.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Hope you liked the story.**

 **Reviews are much appreciated.**

 **For more in the House of the Brave series, please visit my profile page. More stories coming soon.**

 **Next up in Victoire's story: Friend Like You**


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